Totally Real: Year of Hell
by Tengou
Summary: How would it be if the world of Totally Spies would be just as real, dismal and grim as ours? Please R&R! Chapter 5 is in. Chapter 6 is done. Check Chapter 1 for what's done and what's planned. Chapter 7 will come soon.
1. Tesseract I C1: Prologue

**Totally Spies: Year of Hell (The underscored part is done)**

_**ACT 1**_

Episode 01: Tesseract, Part 1  
_Chapter I: Prologue  
__Chapter II: The Mournful Morning  
__Chapter III: Computer Class  
__Chapter IV: Connection Trouble  
__Chapter V: The Arlington Scandal  
__Chapter VI: Glimmer in the Dark  
__Chapter VII: The Source  
__Chapter VIII: Pentagon  
__Chapter IX: Encounter  
__Chapter X: Cooling Leak  
_

Episode 02: Tesseract, Part 2  
_Chapter I: A cloud in the night  
__Chapter II: Escape  
__Chapter III: Mobile Conflict  
__Chapter IV: Washington  
__Chapter V: The President  
__Chapter VI: Urban Evac  
__Chapter VII: To the Victor go the Spoils.  
__Chapter VIII: Survival Run  
__Chapter IX: Blackbird  
__Chapter X: Modern Free Masons_

Episode 03: Affliction  
_Chapter I:  
__Chapter II:  
__Chapter III:  
__Chapter IV:  
__Chapter V:  
__Chapter VI:  
__Chapter VII:  
__Chapter VIII:  
__Chapter IX:  
__Chapter X:_

Episode 04: Our own Soil, Part 1

Episode 05: Our own Soil, Part 2

Episode 06: Reverse Tide

_**ACT 2**_

Episode 07: The Journey

Episode 08: Shattered Souls

Episode 09: Prometheus

Episode 10: Unity

Episode 11: Endgame, Part I

Episode 12: Endgame, Part 2

* * *

**Totally Spies – Realism**

Imagine a world in which the tales of the spies were not completely fashion centered. A world like ours; grim, filled with intrigue, corruption and murder. A world in which they are excentric, impulsive and combative.

Sam, Alex and Clover; three ordinary girls with extraordinary duties. Three spies on the payroll of a global service named WOOHP. Clover, an uptown girl from Beverly Hills with a sharp character, a penchant for gloomy boy bands and a fashion sense that knows no end. Sam, a bright and healthy girl from Boston with a sweet attitude, an aficionado of Parisian Cuisine and a kicker for Mozart, Dvorac and Rachmaninov. Alex, a rowdy youngster with a nasty impulsive bite, grown up from the depths of Hell's Kitchen and the Bronx, NY, with a healthy dosage of Heavy and Black Metal. Together, they have an extravagant house on one of Beverly Hills' Boulevards. Together, they go to the same school. Together, they are plagued by the extremely annoying, cosmetics-oriented and one-dimensional Mandy. In their being complete different human beings, they complete one another in a way no one would think possible, both in real life and in their secret profession; espionage.

This is my effort on generalizing and specifying a story in a more mature directive. Hoping to relinquish the purely feminine attitude and throw in some real life roughness, I aspire to make this a story of action, suspense and humor.

NOTE: My elaboration of canon characters owned by the creators of the original series, Sam, Alex, Clover, Jerry, Mandy and others that recur in the series, is completely subjective and only appeals to the events displayed in the following story.

* * *

**Prologue**

It was January 21, 2005. The moonlight reflected off of the Pentagon's new armored window panes and flickered, a game of playing shadows pulled over the Eastern parking lot. The night was a perfect dark, with few clouds hovering in the air. The roads were fairly quiet, save for the occasional passing car. The activity was on a low, as the last of the restorations had been made to the building's interior. After the plane bore its way into the side of the structure, it had been a daunting task to put it back together. A completely new construction was needed to bare the weight of the new armored windows alone, and don't forget the enormous amount of faltering wiring throughout the Pentagon. Almost its entire network was over fifty years old and had been in need of replacement for alreadt twenty. This however was a rather closely kept secret before the disaster of 9/11. Rewiring had taken years and people were not completely sure whether it was complete or not. Concrete panels covered the walls from the ground up, a thickened wall showed exactly the difference between then and now. Several windows were lighting, meaning that several lights inside were on. They were not with many, just a handful, maybe a board meeting between military big shots. One of the few windows seemed to falter now and then, the light behind it flickering, as if one of the ceiling-mounted lights went on and off on a random sequence. It was the only sign of life in the entire area, up till now.

A large black car drove over the dark road, its tires softly squealing over the tarmac underground. It was a Maybach 62. Though made by Mercedes Benz, it was a brand of its own and a top notch luxury car. This probably armor plated version of a 20 feet long car softly approached its home base. The windows were blinded, permitting no one to view inside, but as we go through those windows, the vision of several men, tightly dressed in formal black suits becomes visible. All tightly shaven, with shades and a wired earpiece, all male. One driver, who devoted his complete attention to operating the vehicle, blinked slightly and turned the steering wheel on par with the bend in the road. Two men were on the back seat, the front passenger seat was empty. The two men behind were slightly bent over a laptop that was stalled upon a small table in between them, its screen displaying a strange convulsion of lines and cubes, with an ever changing pattern. One of them grabbed into a medium sized compartment, retrieving a can of soda. Maybachs of this version were all equipped with all comforts, including wireless internet connection, DVD players and a fridge. Some even had manual driving control. Yes, the Satellite system that orbited the Earth was more advanced than the government made believe the public.

"Behold, Mr. Banks."

One of the agents cleared his throat. His eyes probed the other man beside him, from behind the dark shades. His hand hold on to the side of the laptop and turned it, so the other man could gaze upon the TFT monitor.

"The Tesseract Hydra?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Agent Ryson nodded to Agent banks, without saying much of anything. However, the raising of the corners of his mouth was enough indication. Agent Banks moved his hands to the keyboard and conducted some tests.

"The specimen is extremely resilient. It performs flawlessly in every simulation. Data recommission and registry enclosure goes perfectly. I'd say the Tesseract program is ready for deployment."

Agent Ryson smiled wildly and looked to the front for a moment, shifting his weight and comfortably sitting down for the conclusive 5 minutes of the trip to the Pentagon.

"We will have to conduct further tests at base. We need to find out what exactly the global repercussions would be. And more importantly, we have to make sure our defense will be sufficient. It all comes down to a matter of control."

They both nod and look forward, towards the driver, whose eyes would sink in their right corners, as if anticipating that he was going to be spoken to.

"Pump up the gas. We have very important business.."

"Yes, sir."

At his command, the Maybach started to accelerate to slightly above the speed limit.

Turning up into the parking lot, the heavy car makes a generous 180 degree turn and ends up in a course towards behind the building. Following the road pointed out by white lines, they pass a cologne of parked cars and then make yet another turn, this time to the right. A gate started to roll up with the sound of creaking metal, a complaining sound of rust scraping against more rust. The building was not on its tip top for sure. The black Maybach disappeared into the opening gate just as it was high enough to accommodate its entry, then, silence once more takes hold of the governmental installation.

Inside however, the car drove over a well paved road that quickly bent into a ramp that lead down to an underground parking. The front lights danced over the concrete columns that separated the parking spaces, then the Maybach calmly stopped in between two of them. Lot 19 on level B, simple enough. The inside of the internal parking was a grim greenish brown colored, the lights were not sophisticated, but rather caged lightbulbs of old, a soft mechanical whirring coming from them. The light they casted upon the dismally colored ground gave yet another crippling blow to the sad ambience of the place.

The Maybach doors opened, the front left and both aft doors swung open, perfectly synchronously, and the three well dressed men stepped out, one of them holding the laptop, folded closed between his arm and his side. The other threw the can of coca cola in a garbage bin that stood next to a cranked, wooden door. Mr Ryson, a handsome man and fairly tall at 6 feet 2 inches, opened the door, his muscular build very clearly shown even through the black of his suit. A neutral look sat on his face, a face one would estimate to be about 30 years of age. Mr. Banks, more an intelligence officer than an actual security agent, looked exactly according to his line of work, a corpulent, short man with a mustache, a perfect office desk-employee.

"Follow me, Banks," the static, tall Agent spoke and walked through after keeping the door open for the chubby computer specialist. A short hallway became yet another door within a few moments through a dark corridor. Tapping a button on the side, on the command of Mr. Ryson, the doors swung open and showed a well illuminated lift interior. Both men stepped in, leaving the chauffeur with the car.

The lift came out on the seventh floor and both men stepped out in a completely different environment. From the darkness and damp scent of the indoor parking to the almost completely sterile environment of a true government building. The entire level they were on was only accessible to those with the highest clearances. The sides of the ceiling throughout the entire corridor was lined with lights, the doors slid open, controlled by an advanced computer system. Suddenly, the two turned into another hallway and Agent Ryson moved his right hand in his pocket, retrieving a clearance card.

_Ryson. A 451.124.838 B_

_Dept. of Defense, USA_

_Clearance 0240-710-B_

_G3 Ser.: 16A285 – 45C9 – 441BAE_

His hand moved towards the slit, pushing the card in and sliding it through. A beep was heard from the locking mechanism, then a click as the clearance code was verified. He moved his hand against the flat of the door and opened it up, walking in and motioning Banks to follow while he clips the clearance card back on his chest, where it belonged while inside these walls. Tapping Banks on his shoulder, he gestured him inside manually and closed the door, where they were met by the three other people. Silhouettes sprouting from the one dark corner of the room, one seemingly bent over an overhead projector, trying to get it to work. The other two, clearly a man and a woman, stepped out into the abundant light. The woman was in her thirties and still quite attractive, her arms were folded behind her back and she wore some kind of laboratory uniform. A strange logo was pinned upon her chest. Her access card had a triangle on it, encompassed in an ellipse. A logo that did not belong to any government installation.

"Good evening, gentlemen." The man said, holding an arm around the woman's waist. When they stepped forward, his face came out in the light as well, showing a static, but old face. A man of about 60 years of age, dressed in a very classy suit. A brownish Armani suit, with a dark blue Pullton blouse and a pair of black shoes so shiny that they reflected their very surroundings.

"Mr. Ryson. The laptop."

The old man extended his hand, ushering Ryson to put the laptop down on top of a modest sized table. He immediately did so, gently putting it on top of the table. The old man walked towards him, letting go of the woman and moving his finger over the touchpad. Unlocking the computer with a password, the last used file came back on, showing the same visual manifestation of a weird object the two men were looking at in the car

Path: _D:TS#84Tesseract.JSR_

It almost looked like a visual manifestation of a digital labyrinth, all kinds of cube shaped objects following digital trajects. An ever moving cauldron of digital activity congealing into an everchanging shape.

"The Tesseract Hydra is completed, General. We have subjected it to several tests of durability and resilience. It had passed them all. We are ready to induce it."

A maline smile played upon the old man's lips as he ran a few diagnostics upon the file displayed. The woman in the mean time issued commands to burn the file on a DVD.

"Excellent, Mr Banks. Adrian.." He suddenly looked to Mr Adrian Ryson. At that moment, the trey slit open, showing the burnt DVD glimmering in the light of the luxurious office cubicle.

"Take this disc, my boy, and go to the release coordinates. Finally, our voices will be heard."

"Yes... " Agent Adrian Ryson nodded to the old man, "...father."

He grabbed the DVD, put it into a jewel case and then it disappeared into his pocket. The clacking of his soles against the ground resounded through the office as he left. As the door clicked and Agent Ryson had left, the old man looked at the woman beside him, not paying much attention to the third person that had not yet forfeited his attempts to repair the overhead projector, though the device was not needed at all

"Stop raping the projector and go back to working at the Failsafe."

General Ryson raised one of his grey eyebrows and closed his eyes.

"Phase two of our plot will be initialized soon. How are the units?"

The woman smiled and ushered the man to follow. They too exited the room and went to a freight elevator. The woman tapped the button, the elevator almost immediately opening up to grant access to the both of them. A grin on both their faces as they statically took a stance in the middle of the elevator, watching upon the doors closing in front of them. Thoughts dwelled through both of their minds when they exchanged looks. Some of them displaying some doubts. The woman spoke first.

"When your son injects the Hydra, there is no turning back. You do realize that, don't you?"

"Of course I do, my dear." The general looked in front of him, at the digital display counting down the floors. Suddenly, he repeated, with closed eyes.

"After devoting almost three decades of my life cleaning up after the asses of spineless bureaucrats, you may understand why I lost the ability to have regrets, Celah."

The door opened and showed a massive hall, deep under the ground. Allegedly, it was somewhere between the surface and that secret nuclear power plant. Nicely in formation, hundreds and hundreds of metallic androids were standing upright, motionlessly, the many lights of the ceiling reflecting against their many parts. They were sleek, their skin seemed to be constructed of Titanium, for the way it reflected the light was evident. The woman looked slightly wide eyed, as if she just looked at this for the first time, while the man exited the elevator and walked through the corridor. The artificials were stacked to his left and his right and he looked at them intently. Shortly after, she followed, catching up with the man.

"Maybe that's a good thing for you, then. For, after this, you won't be able to express them ever again..." she muttered softly and looked at him.


	2. Tesseract I C2: The Mournful Morning

Chapter II: Introduction

The sun shone brightly on top of the riches of Beverly Hills, America's greatest material hotspot. The large, boxy houses around avenues filled with green gave off a rather impressive look. Now and then, cars passed over an extremely wide road and young men and women played games on the street. The bopping of a basket ball, the sound of a bicycle bell both sneered through the sound of softly brushing winds. To make a long story short, it was a beautiful day, and everybody who was walking outside to face the shining sun seemed happy.

One of the wide avenues was home to three young women. Three young women in what normal people would think of as an exorbitantly large villa. A structure widely accepted by the Beverly Hills average citizen as average, but in standards of the normal American it was almost a fountain of wealth. In the early morning, the sun shone through the windows and illuminated the living room. It was pretty much a coagulation of several styles; Shiny wooden floor panels, modern, black sofas, a Louis Quatorze book closet, A large retro mirror that catapulted the rays of the sun back again, allowing for a rather enervating play of light to wake up anyone that might still be in the process of rubbing the sand from their eyes. There was also this salon table, a round glass plate supported by a smooth steel base, on which was stalled a varying scale of foods. A halfly eaten sandwich, a can of soda, a Berliner sausage and a piece of schnitzel for one, all clear signs that Alex had been there in one of her early food kicks.

On a couch to the side, one almost against the other, Sam and Clover were sitting and looking at the Television. Sam was dressed in a long green skirt and an equally colored blouse, as well as a shiny silver broche. Her hair was hanging down over her shoulders, her eyes were tampered by a mild touch of make-up. Clover, who was sitting next to her, or rather halfly on top of her, wore short white pants and a thin cloth that is knotted over her chest. She rolled her eyes as she looked down at the well of red hair that is Sam's head.

"I can't believe you are watching news this early! What's the fun in that... It's like going to bed while you're still sleeping. So boring."

"Being aware of what goes on around you is very important, Clover. And no this doesn't limit itself to the boys around you. This is interesting..."

Clover pulled a rather bored face, her mouth extending itself over the width of her face. She grumbled and went to sit back, looking at the screen, finally giving it a few seconds of attention. This time, it wasn't bad news however that graced the day, it was rather good news, in fact. In front of a bluescreen depicting the channel colors sat a well dressed man with a mustache and a small beard. His hands were folded in front of her and his eyes bore a powerful, entrancing gaze.

"Good morning everyone, this is Channel Seven with Robert Paultry and the 9 o clock news. Yesterday, the effective leaders of American internal security have gone through with the newest Unification plan. In this plan, a constant internal connection has been established between the Central NSA, CIA and FBI servers. It is a daring plan to improve the efficacy in which our country's security services can better ensure the safety of the people. In Washington, General Andrew C. Dowell, effective director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Herbert Franklin, NSA attachée and Mr. Joel Robinson, executive coordinator of the Central Intelligence Agency have met to sign this internal treaty at 22 hundred hours on the twentieth of January. The meeting went on without incident and at exact midnight last night, the three main servers of the three organizations have been unified.

Transmitting live from the capital of Washington DC is Channel 7's reporter Shank..."

Suddenly, a small image popped up, taking in about a sixth of the background. The image displayed the Capitol out back, with a static figure in front of it, dressed in a nicely tailored suit and a striped bow tie.

"... And tell me John. What exactly are the properties of this agreement between the three largest internal American security organizations?"

As the question was asked, the small screen that figured Reporter John Shank extended to envelop the entire reach of the TV screen. Two seconds of transmission delay and then his mouth started to move. Holding his own microphone, he looked as if he had a rather satisfied look on his face, as if he had accomplished something by reporting for a major news channel.

Sam tilted her head, playing with a scrunchie in her hair as she narrowed one of her eyes, sitting up to listen closely what the man had to say. As a result, Clover, who was still leaning on top of Sam's shoulders suddenly fell between Sam's back and the backrest of the Couch with an indescryable groan.

"As of now, the three security agencies keep an 'open-port-policy' in which there is more opportunity for corroboration. Information will be shared more thoroughly and this allows for internal matters to be solved far more effectively, not to mention that where normally the time it would take to correspond between these agencies is more than 24 hours, now it can be done within hours or even minutes." John Shank answered calmly. He was at his best for sure. Sam got more and more interested and bent forward with a questioning look. Clover sat up again with bloated cheeks and looked the other way.

The news reader from Channel seven responded almost immediately after John Shank relayed his answer.

"That sounds very comforting. Didn't the safety board debate about possible... repercussions."

John Shank slightly smiled and looked right into the camera. As the transmission was completely relayed, he nodded.

"Yes. There has been an issue of internal security between the three agencies, but the greatest worry has been that when the digital borders between the CIA, FBI and NSA rescind and congeal, they would have to but up way better protection from outside influence. Already, the government has employed several dozens of 'white hats' to examine the security of the new firewalls. Thus far, it has proven more than adequate. Behind me, you see General Dowell and some members of his staff return to his car."

Behind the zealous reporter, a crowd of microphone bearing media freaks were catapulting question after question upon the bald General. Questions, to which he only replied with a simple 'no comment'. As one of the General's bodyguards opened the back door, the man calmly stepped in and got one last microphone shoved almost through the window. As the bodyguard tightly grabbed around the blond reporter, she quickly asked her question. Though quite distorted by background static and the ominous all-round chatter that saturates the mikes, it was still audible enough.

"Sir, Sir.. Aren't you worried about outside influence?"

The general rolled his eyes and put up a pair of dark shades, a stone hard face turning to intercept the female reporter's gaze.

"I can tell you this, my dear. I am more afraid about unauthorized inside influence than I am about outside influence, now, please leave me."

The general roughly pressed the mike out of his car, then the driver closed the electric windows, the car moving off and leaving the media mass be. John Shank looked at it for a while, as his face was turned away from the camera. As the car left the screen, he looked back at the camera and nodded.. "You hear it. If the agencies' confidence is justified, there is not much to worry about from outside perpetrators."

"Thank you John..." the news reader nodded, and as the zealous Mr Shank concluded his live report with the words "This was John Shank for Channel Seven..." his screen once more retracted itself to its small size and disappeared in the upper right corner.

At that moment, Robert Paultry lightly smiled and went on with the other items. "Now, on to the new earthquake that shook the foundations of Kyoto with a devastating 8.2 on the Richter scale..."

Sam looked to the side, at clovers awkward behaviour. "Did you hear that. Finally the government learns to work together. Maybe Bush and his new parliament didn't do such a bad job after all." She slightly blinked and rolled her eyes.

"At least his parliament..." Sam grinned slightly and looked at Cover, who seemed to have been caught in a bad mood.

"Girl, your face is as long as our city hall. What's the matter?"

"It's a matter of internal security..." Clover sadistically responded and stood up. As of a sudden, from upstairs, a rambling sound came from a pair of powerful speakers. Both Clover and Sam got a red blush over their eyes and looked cross-eyed, in an anime-esque fashion, they probably knew what to expect. The blaring of extremely loud Black Metal came from the speakers, trembling through the very foundations of the house and strong enough to send ripples through the water in the sink. Suddenly, all hell broke loose.

"CORPSEVOMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" A yell came from upstairs as a black haired girl with a latino colored skin came sliding down the railing of the stairs. She wore black jeans and a black shirt with printed on it the cover of the album 'Hellbrigade' by _Centinex_. Music harder than the steel toed boots she wore. Her dark eyes look about at Clover and Sam who look at her as if they had seen a ghost.

"Alex, the...!" They scream together, as Alex suddenly slammed into a vase filled with flowers. She lets out a snarl and turned around, the vase shattering against the ground and she fell right beside it, only a few inches away from a large, sharp shard of glass.. "Eee!" She stood up and rubbed her shoulder.

"... flowers..." Clover and Sam uttered, with little black dots as eyes and their arms trembling, pointed at her.

"I'm ok.. I'm ok.." she forgot all about the shards and went to the kitchen, getting a bottle of coca cola.

"Oh Sam, would you please not mix that Abyssal Marmite through my peanut butter? It's revolting!.." She grabbed the glass bottle and spewed off the capsule. She quickly put the bottle in her mouth and drunk it about half empty.. Clover looked away annoyed and Sam slightly grinned, looking at her..

"Sorry, I sometimes forget I'm not the only one using the peanut butter." She slightly giggled and tugs her skirt..

"What were you doing anyway?" she raised her eyebrow at Alex, after her rather aggressive stunt.

Alex lets out a slight burp and rubbed her mouth, putting the coca cola back, without putting the capsule back on the bottle.

"Oh, some ... euh ... mental preparation for today's test. And some warming up for my combat-ki lessons. I've got a belt exam on 5 PM." She walked back up, completely ignoring the shards.

Clover sighed and Sam started to shovel up the shards and dry the ground without any remorse or complaints. She was way too nice sometimes. Looking sideways at Clover and grinned.. "Oh lighten up, at least we actually studied for the test..."

A long silence plagued the living room, Sam put the shards in a bag and flocks them outside, only to look back again at Clover.

"Eh ... you did study for the math-test did you?"

Another silence. Clover's normal upbeat personality didn't surface this morning, there was something way off, it seemed.

"Clover!..." Sam sighed, but cringed as she heard a heavy weight drop on the floor above, probably a dumbbell or something.

"Clover... Give me the derivative of _cos 4x_... This test encompasses 40 of our score, you know...?"

"Trust me, Sammy, I know... I'm just not hungry."

Sam raised her eyebrow.

"What... does this test have to do with food, Clover?"

"Nothing... Which is exactly the status of my personal life..."

"You've lost me," Sam grunted. "What's wrong? You can tell me."

"I don't know it's..."

"It's what?"

"Daniel... He said to me he was..."

"He was what?" Sam asked with wide eyes. "Sick?"

"No..."

"Dumb?"

"Maybe... but that's not what I.." Clover was interrupted by an uptight Sam trying to uncover what is wrong with one of her best friends.

"Dyslexic?"

"No..."

"Crazy?"

"No!.. Yes.. He is.."

"What?"

"GAY!"

"AAAAA!" Sam yelled and looked at her, then tilted her head with a slight smirk. "So your boyfriend is... prefers men?"

"He just told me last night." She sniffled and sunk back on the couch and looked down at the ground.

"I though that honesty was important in a relation..." she sighed, "...next to extremely good looks and taste of course, but, that's one hell of a lie, Sammie. I mean, pretending you're straight. Why would he?"

"Well, maybe he wanted to experiment a little.."

"THANKS, Sam! So I'm his guinea pig? Is that what I am? Something to check if it maybe makes his spirit rise?"

Sam blushed at that covered up dirty joke and stood up. "Come on, Clover, be cool, it will all turn out right. Look at Alex, she never has a single worry..."

Clover pulled an abyssal expression on her face, turning to Sam with a puff from her nose. "If I were remotely like her I'd be worried... Her grade record contains as much zeroes as there are holes in Dutch cheese and the music she listens to is so loud and depressive."

Sam blinked for a moment. Ok, this went the wrong way. She wanted to be helpful and try and stitch Clovers mental wounds, but it seemed as if she only succeeded in tearing them open further.

"Everybody's different. I guess that's why the three of us are such good friends." She giggled. "Look, Clover. It's time to go to school. Try and talk to him and ask why. It will help, trust me." Clover's gaze mellowed slightly.

"Maybe you're right." She tapped Sam on the back and put on her medium heels. They were those extremely shiny pearly ones, enough to blind someone who took 'average' for granted.

"I need to get some more lipstick, I'm all out. Sammie, mind if I borrow your car?"

"Why don't you borrow Alex's car? She always goes biking to school."

"Because Alex's car smells like it hasn't been cleaned in the last two years."

"It **hasn't** been cleaned in the last two years.." Sam said with squinted eyes and an annoyed tremble of her lips.

Clovers eyes started to twinkle as she looked at Sam, it seemed as if her depression had gone into remission fully. "_Pulleeeeeeez?"_

Sam sighed, swatting out her arm, a quick swipe towards just in front of Clovers face, the keys to her car dangling from the key ring between her thumb and index finger.

"Be careful with it, and don't brake on the gearbox again. It's bad for the cogwheels."

"Yeayea sure." She lets out and moved out of the door quickly. If she was quick, she might make it before the first classes start.

"sigh Oh great. Well, let's pull out my old bike then." She stood up and looked down, grumbling at her clothing. This dress isn't really something to go biking around in. Another groan as she moved upwards, towards the well of music from one side. Alex was still entranced by her wild Metal music as Sam zipped by, but not quick enough to actually glance inside that extreme mess inside. She quickly stepped into her own room, a space that completely reflects her mental peace. Totally tidy, all the things stocked neatly in piles in her closets, not a single wayward sock or panties. Looking through her closets, she comes out with a pair of blue jeans and a nice light blue blouse. She then finishes it with a leather brown belt. Stepping out again, she walked over to Alex's door, which was now closed. She tried to knock, but she couldn't top the volume of her speakers...

"ALEX!" She yelled loudly..

"AAALEEEEX!"

"Huh?" Alex suddenly looked around and squints at Sam's intrusion, throwing her bedroom slipper at the off switch of her stereo. With a sudden click, all sounds become silence and she turned around..

"Oh yeah, school!.. Oops, heh.." She grinned and stood up, grabbing a leather coat and walked outside, but not before grabbing her backpack. She actually thought about taking her school books with her.

"Since Clover is gone with my car, let's bike to school together.." Sam smiled.

"Sure.." Alex smiled back and grabs her strange round shades. The excentric brunette steps out of her room and walks side by side with Sam, her toned form huddled in what she thought of as comfy clothing.

"So, Sammie, ready for the biology test this afternoon?"

"We have a mathematics test, Alex."

Alex squints. "Ohw."

"Next time less mental preparation and more mental... study. Damn are you going to sink deep today." She sighed.

"Damnit, Sam. You still have those micro cams? Then I can cheat." She grinned, quickly grabbing her discman from the salon table and walking after Sam through the back door. She ran her hand through her hair for a moment.

"Forget it, you devil." Sam grinned

"Aww.. I'm so screwed. Just like Mandy's Moth..." she blinked and got a bluish blush.. "... I mean, like Mandy's... Motherly instincts..."

Sam squinted, Alex blasts off on her mountain bike, almost ramming straight against the back door and skidding in the back path. Within a few seconds, she skidded upon the tarmac of the wide avenues, followed by a Sam who had to keep a heavy pace to keep up with her. Alex was not much of a morning person, but that's nothing a little bit of hard music can't fix.

"Alex, you watched the news this morning?" She asked as she caught up with her.

"Neh, not really. Why?"

"Well, I just heard that the three largest governmental agencies have established a joint server." She grinned.. "I wonder if WOOHP is part of this union. Somehow I doubt it that sweet old Jerry is left out."

Alex shrugged slightly, turning left, on par with Sam, she kept a good pace at all times.

"I wonder why he didn't tell us then? This concerns all WOOHP Employees, don't you think?"

Sam blinked and dodged a dog that suddenly felt like crossing over the road. "I don't know. Several things are on a need to know basis, even for us... But then, it **had** been on the news, so why keeping it secret."

"I don't know Sammie, let's just ask him once we get another mission." She grinned and looked over her shoulder. "You think you can quickly tell me what the test is about?" She raised her eyebrow.

"Derivatives and Lissajous figures."

Alex blinked and had one more of her blue blushes... An eek-expression on her face. "I have no idea in the world what those things are.." she sinks her head down. "Curse my stupidity..." She sighed and turned around into the last street. "When I finally graduate, they can put my papers on my tombstone!" she said in a whiny, exaggerated tone of voice.

"Oh, dear, Alex... Just try your best. I bet you will be able to retry the test if you fail.." she smiled and looked in front of her. Beverly Hills High was already in plain view and the amount of young scholars closing in on it becomes larger. More cars, more bikes and several people walking over the wide sidewalk. Suddenly, Sam's greenish corvette loudly skidded to a halt in front of the school, and at the vision of that, Sam cringes...

"I'm so gonna strangle her with the jumper cords." She slightly bent down her eyebrow and parked her bicycle in front of the school, moving her hand to lock it away, but then eeked.

"Forgot my lock!" She blinked, gritting her teeth in irritation.

"The retribution for being so smart." Alex grinned and slammed her shiny mountain bike in the slot next to Sam's, then showed her a grey chain.. "No problem, Sammie.." she wrapped the chain around both bikes and locked it, twirling the key around her finger. Then, she moved it into her pocket. Alex suddenly grabbed upon her belly and looked about toward Sam. "Damn that Schnitzel. I guess I read that label wrong. Hold the weights, Minerva, I'm gonna be ten pounds lighter.." she walks with widened legs and her hands in front of her butt, kicking the door open to the female toilets, disappearing inside, almost without a single speck of shame. But the same moment Alex wanted to move in, she bumped into another girl with even longer black hair, a large amount of mascara coats her eyes in an illustrious shadow game. The shine of her hair almost as radiant as the sun itself. The exaggerated scent of lavender almost seeps out of her like liquid. Her clothing consists of a yellow pair of chinch short pants, a Chanel belt and a top that came straight from a Lacoste boutique. Alex rough behaviour knocked the girl straight off her feet.. Alex blinked and her face was pulled in a slightly apologetic expression. The other girl hit the ground with her back.

"Ouch! My hair!"

"Sorry! Huh...?" Alex tilted her head. "Mandy?"

"Look out where you going you Gorilla!"

Alex lips tremble, a slight whisk of air exited her nostrils and her pupils narrow. Her short temper matched her clothing.

"Look, I didn't do it on purpose, I just need to..."

"What? You even walk like one, how hopelessly shameful... and so uncool."

Even when she was down, she still had the dreadful stamina to throw insult after insult. Alex' eyebrow quivered. Ok, she had a rather stupid pose, but she needed to go bad. Her hand shot down to grasp around her arm. With an annoyed look on her face, she yanks her back on her feet, herself trying to stand up as good as possible. She pressed her face almost against Mandy's.

"Now listen, you walking, botanic garden infested fashion statement. Praise yourself lucky that your fall was cushioned by a puddle of detergent and especially because I need to go too badly to go Sith on your ass!" Alex grunted and shoved her aside, continuing her strange walk towards the bathroom door, she slipped in and slammed the door shut. Mandy gasped in a 'how rude' kind of way.

"Somebody so needs to sign that bitch up for the Ministry of Funny Walks. Peh!" a disgruntled Mandy uttered. Then, her eyes suddenly widen.

"Puddle of Detergent?" Her irises travel to the corner of her eyes, looking at a lock of her black hair. A strange, viscously dripping substance soaked half her haircut, completely ruining it. The janitor squad of Beverly High are sometimes slightly generous with their cleansing detergent. Maybe that has something to do with the lack of air fresheners.

"AAAAAAAAAAAA!" She said and quickly moved towards the sink and tried her best to wash it out. Her hands move around as if they were pistons moving at 5000 rpm.

Sam and Clover got a glance of this through the open door to the Women's bathroom. They both erupted in a laughing streak and walked into the Math Classroom. The test was due to commence. Mandy followed in later, her face was red with humiliation and anger. Her wealthy upbringing and complete pampering has left her with an ego the size of Jupiter. Always wanting the last word and struggling to learn the best ways to insult and belittle others, she isn't used to people who are resistant to her sharp attitude.

"Okay, ladies and gentlepeople," the slightly corpulent Mathematics teacher said. Playing with his well shaved chin and short black hair and scratching at his back, he walked and distributed today's test among all the scholars in the classroom. Mandy reluctantly sat between her 'posse' of over-compliant fashion fetishes and looked at the test.

"Oh, how demeaning..."

Suddenly, Alex' army like boots came thumping in calmly, then suddenly stopped as she looked at the complete silence that held the entire classroom. She puffed, very glad to be relieved off the excess weight. She slightly squinted and looked around the classroom.

"What's up?" she wondered...

"It's like a funeral died in here!"

A sudden throat clearing from behind her hit her ears. She blinked and looked at the source. The Math Teacher stood there, pointing at an empty desk, next to Clover and Sam. What a coincidence.

"Ohh... eh... Sorry..." she murmured and walked towards the desk, planting herself next to her two friends. She grabbed into her backpack and found her pen, pencil, protractor, setsquare and her graphical calculator. The test appeared in front of her face and she looked at it with a raised eyebrow. Clover gave her a pat on the back.

"Go for it tiger."

Clover was just as unprepared as Alex was, though. Her blue eyes beam upon the first question. She immediately lost what little understanding she had about the subject.

_Calculate the circumference of an Asteroid with amplitude 1._

_Calculate its derivative._

What the hell is an asteroid? One of them shooting stars? What's with the amplitude? I don't freaking get it. Both Clover and Alex get a case of sweat dripping down their faces. Sam was completely calm, scribbling answer after answer as if she were a computer.

100 Minutes later, a stream of disgruntled scholars leave the classroom. 90 percent of the faces were long, 10 percent of the faces were shiny with joy. Many heels clacked against the ground, creating an almost constant tapping sound. Clover and Alex were walking side by side, with Sam behind them, Their difference of expressions was very apparent.

"If I didn't score an absolute Zero percent, my score will be negative for sure," Clover moaned in a depressed tone of voice

"Likewise," Alex added to it. "What asteroid do they mean anyway? The one that made the Yucatán Crater or something?"

Sam sighed and jumped on the both of them with a slight smile, moving her arm around both Clover's and Alex' outer shoulder.

"An asteroid is a mathematical figure, the x displacement defined by _**sin³** **t** _ and the y displacement defined by **_cos³ t_**." Sam tells them calmly. "It was all in Chapter 10. To calculate the deriv..." She was interrupted by both Clover and Alex at the same time..

"ALRIIIIGHT!"

"Enough, Sam. We screwed it up, don't rub it in," Clover whined. "I dunno, I'm supposed to be good enough at mathematics. I'm supposed to be a little good at everything!"

"Come on Clo... You just haven't studied enough this time."

A sharp cackle came out from behind her, Mandy and her posse walking by.

"I'm sorry, Clooover.. But The idea... Sorry, the remote illusion that you are good at anything at all is enough to send me in a laughing streak." Another cackle escaped her mouth.

"As usual, I have passed with flying colors. It's a genetic thing. Just as much as your extremely unfashionable appearance."

Grinding her teeth together, Clover stands upright, her fists clenched and her face reddening. A high pitched growl coming from her mouth. Alex and Sam stood there, slightly quivering their eyebrow. "O oh." A giant sweatdrop ran down the front of their faces.

"Oh, and Blondie, let's not forget..." Mandy went back for round two, her maline gaze supported by a nonchalant movement of her hand through her mass of black hair.

"That you are so desperate that you go out with a gay boy..." The laughing increases, now not only coming from Mandy and her posse, but from people all around. Several girls that were busy with their lockers turned around to join in the laughter. Some guys did so as well, most of which didn't even saw, heard or understood the actual joke. The red blush on Clovers face extended over her entire body, the devilish glow of extreme humiliation pulling over her entire form.. "I... I..."

"Aww, Cloooooover... It's ok, you don't have to go and stammer..." Another laugh from all round. A completely disoriented clover did not know where to step. She quickly turned around, moving down the hall, accompanied by her belittlement. Sam and Alex slightly sighed, They thought Clover was going to take out her nails upon the source of her humiliation, but she reacted very passively. The look on her face however was tainted with a vengeful glimmer. She was up to something. Alex supported clover and held onto her shoulder calmly, at which Clover grabbed the brunette by the neck of her leather jacket. She pulled Alex's head close to hers and talked.

"You are so gonna help me get back at that skeeze."

Alex sighed, Sam listened in from about half a meter away.

"Well I don't know Clover. After my last walk-in with one member of her posse, you know, the one with the abnormally sized shades, the principal is kinda so far up my ass, checking my every move, that he can taste what I had for breakfast, which is extremely annoying. He's so looking for the slightest chance to get me suspended..."

"Come on tiger! I'll cover your back... Just help me think of something. I'm too proud to let this go over without biting back."

A tap to both of the girl's back, the redhead rolled her eyes. "Next class! Come on!"

Alex shrugged.. "What class?"

"Chemistry, silly, come on.!"

"Sammie, what would I do without you." They said simultaneously, then hearing the bells ring.

"What classroom? Sam...?"

"B-20..." She squints her eyes again. "Don't you write anything down?"  
"Yeah, lyrics with lots of profanity in them."

"Forget I asked..."

They walked together, up the stairs to Beverly high, passing the large round window, the sun shone right through to the large school hall. For a school in a prestigious neighborhood, the brownish plaque filled wall was rather porous and degenerated. Creaking doors and floor parquet in the western wing of the school make it look rather different from the main wing.

A line of about 20 young men and women went through one of the doors, dividing themselves over the seats. The three young spies sat somewhere in the middle, a compromise between Sam's urge to sit in the front to learn as smoothly as possible, Alex' urge to sit as far back so she can attend to other business without being noticed too much and Clovers penchant to sit in center class in order to be noticed as much as possible. The rest of the seats filled up rather quickly and then, the new teacher came. It was a woman of about 45 years of age, a medium height figure, sleek and tightly winded in a formal suit. Her low heels clack against the ground on her way towards the teacher's desk. For how she was clothed, she was rather light mooded.

"Good morning, class. How are you doing today?" she asked. Her question gave rise to a slight mumbling throughout the classroom. Some of the more apt students already got their chemistry book from their backpacks, sliding through the pages to find wherever they were left.

"Ok boys and girls..." she started, "Open your books at page 327. Chapter 8, Paragraph 8.3. Today, we're going to discuss the powerful ionic properties of Alkali metals. As you all know..." she looked at Alex who was looking somewhere else.

"... or as you all are supposed to know at least... ions are charged atoms or molecules with an abundance or shortage of electrons. When positive and negative ions hit one another, for instance ammonium, NH4, a positive ion with one electron too few and choroxide, ClO, a negative ion with an electron too much, will react by evening the scale. One electron will be stolen away by the NH4+ and even off by breaking down these two ions into a molecule of water and a neutral NH2Cl molecule. The evening of electrons goes hand in hand with these types of reaction, because ionic bonds are stronger than atomic bonds and the exchange of electrons supplies enough power to recombine the atoms."

She illustrates her story by chalking a reference on the blackboard. She then looked back towards the class...

"There is one group of elements in which these reactions are most violent, because the imbalance is strongest. These are Alkali metals." She tapped with a pointing stick on her hand softly. "They are the foremost left column on the periodic table of elements, save for Hydrogen, of course. Anyone who can name them all for me?"

Sam zealously flicks up her hand.

"Yes, Sam?" The teacher halfly expected her to fanatically offer to answer.

"Lithium, Potassium, Sodium, Rubidium, Cesium and.. uh... Francium..." she said out loud. Mandy looked the other way with rolling eyes.

"Very good, Sam. In order from lightest to heaviest too. Impressive." The teacher smiled slightly and continued her story.

"These elements are rather unstable, as they will most likely react to water and even air." She moved her hand over several half-measure goblets, one of which is filled with water. Next to it stood an odd jar with small chunks of a certain substance in it, held in check by an acidic mixture.

"In order to show you youngsters what I mean with volutility, I've grabbed a little something from the chemistry closet." The teacher smiled.

"These small chunks of metal are pure potassium. (K+) Each little clod is about 3 grams in weight." She grabbed a pincer and and removed the lid from the jar with the potassium in its acidic coat. Grabbing around one of the chunks, she takes it out and hovers it above one of the 2 inch goblets filled with water. Her eyes turn over the class again, with a smile. "Behold."

She dropped the potassium in the water. Suddenly, it starts smoking, then a small flash of light erupted, the goblet starts shuddering and it almost shatters, multiple glass fractures are visible, the water seeping through. Half the class, wide eyed, not really confident that such a small amount of this potassium could provoke such a reaction, stared in slight awe. Mandy however was completely unfazed by what happened. She was busy looking at herself through a mirror.

"Oh dear me. Look at me, my mascara has run out!... This is so humiliating... Guard the toilet in break time when I'm in there to fix it, will you?"

Her posse nodded, as always heeding to her claims.

Alex was wideeyed too, but then grinned, seeing what happened to the goblet and hearing what's concerning Mandy altogether. She bopped her elbow against clover's arm, to get her attention. "You've got nimble fingers, don't you?" she asked, with a raised eyebrow and a grin.

"Yeah.." Clover wondered, looking sideways at Alex, wondering what she was hinting towards.

"Get me that pota..." she scratched the back of her head. "That stuff and I will get her back so hard." She whispered. Clover's face lighted up like a candle of happiness.

"I like the sound of that tiger. You'll have it." She grinned, already looking forward to the noon break.


	3. Tesseract I C3: Computer Class

Chapter III: Computer Class

"Catch you later, Terminator..." Alex said, walking off.

**Ten Minutes Later**

Okay, the Chemistry class is over, now it is time for a half an hour break. The girls walk to the cantina, where Sam always takes a mild lunch. Clover mostly goes for a sandwich with a nice cool soda and Alex, well, Alex eats as much as she can for the 'activities' that will fill the rest of her day. It is almost as if in everything, the three spies are completely different. Luckily, the time of WOOHP Babysitters and GLADYS looking over their shoulders has long gone by. Luckily, because what she would see or detect would some times most definitely rock her world. Laughter was heard mostly from one of the tables. Sam was the mildest one, laughing, but with a certain sense of control. Clover and Alex however were huddled together, virtually spewing out their vocal cords in laughter.

"Haahhah.. Oh my god.. You did... You did what?"

Alex made erratic movements, holding a hand to her nose.

"Mm.. Mmmmm wait!.. Not now, macaroni fights its way up my nostrils...!"

Another hearty belly laugh filled the room. Arnold, who sat close by with two of his intellectual friends, looked at it with a disdainful expression on their face. They had the steadfast belief that intellect and self-control needed to coincide. As the girls took a breathing pause. Clover slightly coughed and looked back at Alex.

"I don't know what you did but considering what I've heard from the hall it must be pretty bad." A snicker exits from her mouth.

"Oh, I just..." At that moment, Alex words were overshadowed by an extremely sharp, ear shattering whine. A loud yell went through the cantina as the woman with the otherwise silky black hair stomped in, yelling and complaining.

"LOOK at what you DID! All three of you! You ruined me!" she yelled, having completely lost it. Her posse was busy cleaning her, as she was dripping with water. As she moved, she left behind a large well of little puddles as it dripped off of her like apricot from a pancake. She made drastic movements with her arms and tears stood in her eyes. Whatever happened to her, she was severely stricken by it.

"No sin I ever committed could come close to the humiliation I have suffered by the hands of you three today, you... you...!..." She puffed an enraged breath... "You horrible black marks on society! I will so get you back for this! My hair... my clothes... And above all my reputation. Laws of popularity dictate that you will SO pay!" She run away halfly crying, drawing her posse along powerfully. The three nameless women were yanked off their feet and dragged along over the ground, their heads flushed with a blue blush of humiliation.

Sam, Alex and Clover paid little heed to the forecast of retaliation, but laughed some more as they saw them retreat. Clover more than anyone had a wild sensation of satisfaction, hugging her arms around Alex and rubbing her head against hers in a playful fashion. "My Hero!"

They laughed some more, but gradually redirected their attention back upon their lunches. Sam calmly and controlledly put a bite of her fresh salad in her mouth, varying it with a drink of apple juice. She closed her eyes as she tasted it. It was simple, but delicious. Clover bit away at her sandwich with a newfound upbeat mood, humming a soft tune to herself as she munched on it. Nice, hearty sandwich with ham cheese and some veggies. Alex also went back to eating her macaroni and sate. A good appetite helps an active girl through the day like nothing else. In between bites, Clover turned towards Alex with a raised eyebrow, now and then a slight chuckle graced their lips still, they came up almost randomly.

"So..." Clover hinted. Alex looked up, flicking off several beads of macaroni from her cheek.

"What?" she asked.

"Well. I'm still curious. What did you do?" Clover grinned.

Alex started to tell her story to Clover, with a calm tone of voice, in between bites of her hearty warm lunch.

**Ten Minutes Earlier**

As the doors sprang open, the three girls went out side on side, almost the first to leave the class room. Clover puffed. "Man, that was a boring class.." She closed her eyes and tapped Alex on the side. "The potassium you ordered, Alex."

Alex looked down, grabbing the goblet with a grin on her face.

"Excellent, Clover. Your vengeance will be very explosive." She grinned with a playful blush on her face.

"Catch you later, Terminator..." Alex said, walking off.

She looked at the chunks of potassium, then looked at Mandy exiting the room. At the moment she saw her and her hand playing with her long black hair, Alex grinned and puts the potassium in her pocket. Looking at Mandy go by, she slightly grinned. The girl that wore the massive shades went past Alex in a large circle, as to maximize her distance from her. After getting those two blue eyes, she didn't want anything to do with her. Alex grinned and slightly played with a strand of her black hair. She playfully let go a fake hiss towards the girl. She bounced back and walked next to Mandy, getting away calmly. The tension was incredible. Alex liked it, Clover enjoyed looking at it, but went for the big one. Suddenly, Alex turned around the corner, keeping her eyes upon the volatile substance in her hands. The glass goblet gave off an entrancing shine.

As Mandy went to make good on her claims, she and three girls alongside her went into the girl's bathroom. A slight raise of Alex' eyebrows and she walked inside after them, just in time to see Mandy disappear in one of the toilets, probably grabbing her make-up to secretly uphold her 'spotless visage'. The three girls of her posse stood in front of the door, looking suspiciously at Alex as she walked in. She stopped and looked at them with an annoyed look on her face. "What?"

The girls remained in front of the door, huffing slightly and cocking their head away disdainfully. A squint from Alex eyes made the girl with the large shades move about slightly.

"Whatever, girls. I just need to drop another one of my Hindenburgs..." She barged forward and opened the door to the toilet to the left of the one Mandy's in.

"These high fiber breakfasts are really doing me something." She grinned, the other girl's faces contorting into a slightly grossed out expression.

**Ten Minutes Later**

Clover suddenly went to sit closer to Alex, her hands folded together as she lowered one of her brows. She wondered where this went.

"So you were in the bathroom? What did you do?"

"I went to stand on top of the lid, these toilets are like cubicles, their walls don't extend up to the ceiling." Alex grinned and shrugged slightly.

"So I opened the goblet and threw the stuff in Mandy's toilet." She laughed and sat back. "Then I got out of there. I heard a strange cracking sound." She played her index fingers together.

Sam widened her eyes, the corners of her mouth moving upwards. "Oh my god.." She looked at a janitorial squad walking towards the girl's bathrooms, armed with a variety of cleaning equipment. Mops, buckets, sponges and two of those cleaning carts.

"Alex exploded the toilet!" They laughed in unison and Clover and Alex almost fell over back, hugging together as to not fall. Sam looked at them and pulled at both their ears playfully.

"You two are incredible..."

"Break's over, honeys, we've got to go to our next class," Sam suddenly told them, to which the two audacious teenagers looked at one another and shrugged.

"Computer Class..." they said simultaneously and afterwards, they sighed simultaneously.

The three spies walked out of the cantine, their heels standing in half an inch of water as they passed close by the toilet. Sam looked wide eyed and clover slightly cringed. "I think you overdid it a weeeeee bit." She slightly quivered one of her eyelids and walked through pretending as good as she could that she knew nothing of it. Alex never laid eyes upon the door that gave access to the toilets. Sam gave one short glance, but quickly blushed and looked away. Sam bumped against Alex's elbow.

"How much did you use?" she asked, at which Alex grabbed the goblet, now completely empty. "Ehhh.. All of it?" she quickly put it back in her pocket.

"I hope they don't find out. If they do you're so suspended." She whispered, but made sure not to get anyone else's attention in doing so.

Quickly muffling through towards the intended classroom on C-level, they entered a large locale with a network of modern computers. Windows NT, powerful processors and 256 MB SDRAM each. They were used for computer class, but they were open after class as well, often used by people to do some online gaming or to chat. Arnold and his friends often resided in here after three as well. But now, it filled up with the diversity of scholars, almost all seats would be occupied. Sam, Alex and Clover were sitting next to one another, side by side in front of three computers. They were already turned on.

Computer class was a very diverse subject on Beverly high, as there were many different things that were handled in it. Of course, there was quite a lot of diversity in skill among the students, so for those with an explicit interest in computers, there were above-intermediate courses as well. The general subjects which the scholars were obligated to follow were spread over the entire year, each with a test that encompassed a sixth of the total score. Documentation was the first subject, where the students gained knowledge about programs like Microsoft Word and Notepad and for those interested and therefore strictly voluntary, a little course in using LaTeX documentation. Second subject was the creating of a database and what followed with as added bonus subject the creation of tabulars and matrices in LaTeX, as well as creating PDF's. The third subject was more graphical and has just been completed; Learning to use vector-based drawing programs and PhotoShop editors. The computer aficionados have the opportunity to extend towards learning how to integrate images and macros in LaTeX. Now, the girls are studying basic HTML and making a very simple website. Sam also does the bonus course in intermediary HTML and Java Applet creation. Making frames, as well as learning how to make an applet figuring a digital clock.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gents." The elderly man uttered. Matt van Dijck, a Dutch Data Processing expert, was over 50, but he had a very extended knowledge about computers and computerization throughout the last hundred years. Like he often said, he used to punch cards for old data storage machines. He tugged at his kaki pants for a moment and smiled, moving one of his hands to fondle his beard. He spoke in a low, calm voice.

"This Friday, we will have to take our HTML journey a little bit further. There are several programs on each system here, able to work with HTML coding. We will use TextPad. You find it under _Start_ and then _Programs_."

All people who were paying attention did what the teacher asked, moving through the menus and opening the program. In the corner, Arnold and his friends had their fingers rattling over the keys. They were busy in their own world.

"Hey Melvin, look at my new compiler!" He slightly picked at one of the zits on his cheeks and looked at the massive amounts of code. They were busy in C+.

"Finally, it's complete and able to interpret and angle out vertex accumulations and isomorphic polygons." He laughed, with a strange sucking sound from his throat after each cackle.

"Gigabyte cool!" Melvin read over the code for a while. "Dude, it's still kind of gross and stuff. You should clean it up more."

"Yeah, well, you know how it is. You start programming and you go on correcting stuff until it barely works." Another cackle.

"Yeah, and then it takes a weak to de-rancify the code. Heh heh. Kinda."

"Well, whatever," Sander added, "Check out my new 1.6 Terabyte hard disk! I can barely lift it! It weighs 12 pounds! Look." He very carefully lifts it out of his bag. Arnold looked about for a moment, raising his eyebrow. "That must have cost almost 1600 dollars now..."

"Yeah I know ain't it great? That's 1 dollar per Gigabyte!..."

Silence, then a sudden burst of laughter.

"One... two... three... four... five! Stop laughing, back to work." Arnold timed

They suddenly turned back simultaneously, erupting once more in a well of rattling fingers against keyboards. Clover looked at it with rolling eyes and then turned back to her screen.

"I never seem to find out how these things work..." She sighed, then Alex shrugged and puffed out a breath.

"Ah, don't wine, you. At least you didn't confuse Formatting with Defragmentation." Alex let out another grunt and turned away.

"Oh yeah," Sam butted in, then whispered at clover, "88 GB of school material down the drain..."

Clover and Sam snickered.

"And Mr Van Dijck's hidden porn collec..." Alex added out loud, but was suddenly interrupted

"OKAY, PEOPLE! NOW PAY ATTENTION!" Matt walked through their lane with a red face and brushed his hands together. Half the class looked weird at him, not so much having heard about it but rather surprised by the sudden rise of voice.

"EhhhhhHHHUM.. As I wanted to say, open your textbooks at page 64 and then we will go through basic HTML Layouts..."

Whether the man had really used his talent for computers to secure a large amount of storage space for his special video files or not was inconclusive, but he had a large bead of sweat dripping down his forehead, indicating her wayward claim may be painfully accurate. His lip slightly quivered, but noticing no one really noticed it, he regained his cool and went on with the lessons of today. His hand disappeared in his pocket for a while as he puffed out a breath.

"Okay, ladies and gents, today's work will be to finish the first twelve problems. If you need any help, I'll be right here."

Clover looked at the screen of her computer, her fingers nimbly dancing over the keyboard, just like Sams. Alex was more like putting out one finger and pressing the keys as if she were trying to get through the keyboard, grasping the attention of several people around her.

"It's not your bamboo training tiger, be gentle!" Sam grunted at her and then turned back to her assignment. Alex tried to do the same, but eventually derailed her attempts and changed course towards a game of Ninja Chess, a mildly popular online game, where you do not move one piece and then wait for your opponent, but you can move each piece whenever you want. On top of that, the game is littered with strange kung-fu sounds to increase the fun of the game-play. Unfortunately, the computers were all muted during class, unless sound was needed for the classes.

"Yeah! I'm gonna get him! Oh, you bastard, my Bishop! Ooo pawn rush pawn rush. No nononononono! Ahh crap! Oh you son of a ...! Yes.. yes.. c'mon.. c'mon. I'm ... gonna.. shove... this.. rook.. up your ASS! YeeeHaaww!"

"Alex..."

"Ohh wait you, I'm not done with you yet." She slammed her hands on the mouse and shoved her next piece.

"Yeah.. Knight Fight! Knight Fight.. Ewwww.." she squints. "Bishop Cock-up..."

"Alex!..."

"...gonna ram this Queen up your Spleen!..."

"ALEX!.."

"... YEEEY I won!"

"ALEX VASQUEZ!" Matt van Dijck suddenly folded his arms. He was a nice teacher but he also had his limits.

"Yeah?" she looked up suddenly.

"You can go now. Out! Huh? What the hell did you..?"

Alex's screen started flipping and suddenly, all the windows she has opened went into cascade viewer mode without any warning. One by one, the screens were closing down and Alex, being rather intimidated by this display of 'oh shit what have I done now' arched her back to get her face away from the computer as far as possible. Suddenly, the CD-ROM trey extended and then retracted back into the computer. Her eyelid quivered in a slight shock, Clover looked at it with a cocked head, equally confounded. Sam slightly widened her eyes and addressed her.

"Alex, girl, what did you do?"

"Only some ninja chess! It wasn't me, I promise!" She answered

Complaints suddenly started to rise from the entire room, as several scholars were busy with the internet too, in order to test their HTML work. In a corner, people from other classes sat, working to find information on the net. A handsome blond young man was bashing the 'Next'-button in a rather astounded manner.

"Mr van Dijck... Uhm, the internet doesn't respond anymore."

"Sir, the web is down."

"Damn, lost my Google search!"

"Ok, calm people..." Van Dijck grunted and looked at the connections, in special he gave the hubs a gaze, looking if there weren't any coaxes rend out of their sockets. Surprised that he didn't find anything wrong, his inbound irritation became directed at the provider.

"Adelphia so Blows..." he sighed and then sat down.

"Ok ladies and gents, no harm done. Just continue with your work offline." He grinned and sat back down. Sam puffed and especially Arnold, Melvin and Sander were completely devastated as they lost their ability to test a new Java Applet to calculate differential equations in a hyper-plane.

"Alex, seriously. You should act like a human being once in a while," Clover complained. "This is getting out of hand..."

"What? I didn't blow up the connection!"

"Yeah yeah just keep your voice down..."

Alex's eyes squint in a slightly hautaîne expression. It was hard sometimes when you have this much energy. She looked down a bit and puffed, then turned back to the computer, actually attempting to do a few of the problems figured in the book. Her hands calmly move over the keys, not really quickly, but at the best of her abilities. She was already so looking forward to gym class.


	4. Tesseract I C4: Connection Trouble

**Chapter 4: Connection Trouble.**

The sun stood very high in the sky, shining down upon the soft, lush school grounds of Beverly Hills High. The Friday at school was almost finished and the urge to conclude a rather tedious week with a large shopping adventure worked its way up into the three girls' brains. The adrenaline was flowing, the endorphins running wild in the conjoint urge to go out and dance the night away, the only thing keeping them down in their seats, in front of their computers, running through their HTML tasks time by time, manually, because the Internet did not yet come back, was the cold hard awareness of the red hot sun. Inside of the classroom, all that was heard were many rattling fingers, the occasional yawn and the slight humming of the elderly teacher, Matt van Dijck, reading his paper. No doubt, his attention was pointed upon what was on the news the very morning of this day; The digital union of America's three main security agencies had grasped the worry and interest of an entire nation. His eyebrows slightly raised as he digested the information calmly, under the pleasure of a warm cup of coffee and a cookie. It was a teacher's prerogative to eat and drink in class, a privilege of course not doted to the masses of scholars, most of which always left their dirty plates to simmer in the bacterial hotbed that was the School Cantina. He closed his eyes, turning the page over to gaze upon the more mundane news. For some reason, he enjoyed reading about irrelevant stories and pranks, comics being a good relief from the world's formalist attitude of today. Even as a teacher, one succumbs to the rigors of having to live up to a certain level of performance.

Sam was sitting back after completing the last of her HTML problems and looked around the room, bored out of her skull with her hands behind her neck, breathing in a constant matter, in and out, in and out. She looked to the side, at Clover, who was still bent over her work and at Alex who, to her utter amazement, was also busy at it. No games – certainly no more online games for sure – no dirty jokes, no stories and not a sound from her voice to throw them off their concentration. The class was about half way, it was almost half past twelve and all three girls were silent. The entire class was silent and even Mandy, who normally had her attention divided in a combination between her work, talking to her posse and maintaining her exaggerated personal hygiene or make-up, was completely bent over the task at hand. Though, at a sudden moment, this silence was completely shattered by the sound of a pager that emanated from the bulging tourist belt that hung around Sam's waist. Since she was half-hanging back over her chair, she almost lost it when the surprise of the sound hit her, barely able to retain her balance and send her legs back forth in order to make the chair fall back upon its feet. She puffed, her head red with tension and sweatdrops running down her face. "Damn."

"Sam, what is that coming from your... belt?" Mr. van Dijck uttered.

"It is... my pager, sir. I am sorry, I forgot to put it off, but I..."

She sneaked a peek at the pager, just in case. Working for an agency of global protection makes it very important to be available at practically any time. Plus, nobody of their age actually ever beeps them up. They are always called on their mobile phones and only a few people knew about the pager. Sam's mother, her uncle, her grandparents and...

_W ... ... ... (URGENT)_

Sam gasped for a moment, her eyes almost completely tunneling upon the letter _W_. It was WOOHP. It was Jerry. She looked upon Clover to her right, and then behind Clover's back to Alex who, in frustration about not knowing the solution to Problem 5 in the HTML Textbook, was also leaning back. Without making much of a sound, she makes her lips move.

_It's Jerry._

They suddenly stood up and were about to walk straight out the door, in newfound determination. They already completely forgot about several things, one of which a well audible throat clearing from the corner of the classroom reminded them of.

"Where in the blazes do you three think you are going now?"

They completely halted in their stride. Sam immediately used her smart head to think of a way out.

"It's my pager, sir. It's an emergency." She said.

"Oh, really," Mr. Van Dijck suddenly raised his eyebrow and let the corners of his mouth rise in a sly grin. "What kind of... emergency, my dear?"

"The urgent type of emergency. It's about my grandmother, she's been taken in at the hospital. She survived a stroke."

"Oh my dear, is she all right?" Van Dijck responded.

Sam was about to answer, not realizing she had made a little mistake, but fortunately, Mr Van Dijck didn't catch on as of yet. Alex and Clover stood by her, Alex fondling the rim of her leather jacket, the rather vulgar Black Metal T shirt right in the man's gaze. As Sam's mouth opened and the first short sound came out, she was interrupted by the nodding teacher.

"Never mind, you three can go, but come by next Tuesday and drop off your answers. They will be graded, after all.." He slightly smiled.

Sam would nod, her head slightly red. "Thank you, sir. Come on Clover, Alex." She started to rampage out of the room, Clover and Alex following after her in a hefty stride, Clover's heels clacking against the ground audibly, the heavy boots on Alex' feet slightly thumping. As the door closed after they had left, it shortly got the attention of the rest of the class. Mandy looked at it with a disdainful glare in her eyes.

"There's always something with those three last-year fashion disasters..."

When the three were gone, Mr. Van Dijck turned around, looking back at the students that were perfectly seated behind the computers. As his lips opened up for a sound to come, he was suddenly silenced by a clarifying thought. A short silence plagued the room as half the class put its attention upon the static Dutchman, but he turned back to the wooden door.

"How can a pager tell you what's going on?" His face was contorted in a sign of confusion.

-

In the meanwhile, the three spies were walking in a quick pace towards the exit, the corridor through which they moved was the very same one as last and as they walked past the ladies' room, they suddenly realized. It had been cleaned pretty well by now, but that was not the only one. In the prospect of a new mission, there was often this exhilaration seething through the three young women's bones, telling them everything looks different somehow. Clover made a slightly exorbitant U-turn by latching one of her hands onto the arm leaning on the side of the stairs that went down to the main hall, and zipped down several steps, then continuing her path downwards step by step, but quickly. Sam followed suit, her heels clacking rhythmically down the middle of the stairs, Alex taking two or three steps at the same time almost tripped and with a wild movement of her legs, she landed down on the space between, where the elevation was half between two levels. They moved down the second half of the stair, and then yet another one, towards the floor. Their faces had a no-nonsense expression lodged on them, a mood like a statue.

When they reached the large door that separated Beverly High from the outside, a sudden gash of cool wind hit their hair and blew it aloft. They briefly looked at one other and walked to the right alongside the school wall. The ground was slightly littered with cans and packs of drink, as well as a piece of paper here and there, probably coming from a map, thrown away. When they were acceptably far away from all other scholars, they suddenly turned to one another in a little three men's – or women's – circle. They wanted to start talking at the same time, and as they noticed their voices were heard at the same time, they stopped again, at the same times, waiting for a few seconds to time their turn, but ending up doing the exact same thing over again. Sam, the most steadfast of the three on most occasions, took the verbal lead.

"WOOHP paged us. We have to call in." She said and looked around in order to check if there are no people dropping any eaves. Clover turned around and looked upon Sam's face.

"I forgot my cell phone, Sammie, I'm sorry."

"I've got mine with me," Alex said calmly and grabbed into her jacket, fishing in the deep pocket with her tongue hanging from her mouth, a sign of effort.

"No no no, not our own phones," Sam said with a slightly maternal tone and looked at the two, who gaze back at her with a rather confounded look.

"Why not?" Alex and Clover ask simultaneously, Clover once more moving her hand to play with her hair, her eyes closed against the glare of the sun in the sky. It wasn't particularly hot, since it was mid winter, but it was bright nonetheless. It was interesting how a 23 degree differential could mean a 30 degree Centigrade difference in temperature.

"Don't you two remember what we have learned in our basic espionage training?"

They look at her in an even odder expression on their face.

"Never call in to home base on regular phones, remember. New times, new dangers, even the old com-powders are dangerous now. Communication technologies are improving, as are the means to counter them or to tap into them. I quote '_when contacting main base, use a cloned phone or cell-phone, with a blank number and registry and throw it away after one or two calls are made. If you have no access to such a piece of equipment, then..._"

"Use a phone booth..." Clover finishes. They look at one another and then look down the street. All three have the same idea, at the same time.

"The Mall."

They embark, running over the grass field and jumping over the stone ledge around the front yard, then went through the exit where they suddenly spread out. Sam and Alex went to their bikes, but Clover moved to where she had left Sam's car. When she noticed the other two went another way, she skidded to a halt and halfly stumbled, looking back upon them.

"Your car, Sam!"

"Oh yeah, right..." she mumbled and tapped Alex on the shoulder.

"Come on, Alex."

They nodded and ran towards the parking lot. It was rather quiet around its premises, there were several street boys sitting on the trunk of an old Rambler, one playing with a yo-yo, a group of kids were dribbling a basketball around, while yet another two were looking under the hood. A guy, smeared in black oil and wearing a blue overall over a yellow shirt, was busy fixing it, in the mean time cleaning by the bougies. They all tilted their head towards the three young women that, with a rather eye-catching show of acrobatics, jumped the 6 and a half feet fencing around the parking lot. Alex was first and walked towards the car intended, a blue Jaguar XKR Coupe, Sam's Car. They looked at each other for a moment and then Alex jumped over the door, into the driver's seat. Sam wide-eyed.

"Oh no way... No fu.." Sam grunted and then Alex grinned. "Clover, keys."

Clover lets the corners of her mouth rise and threw Alex the key.

"Oh shit, there goes my car." Sam whined and jumped, together with Clover, in the passenger seat, huddled halfly over one other. Alex lets an almost malign smile cross over her face, pressing the key into the jumper. She looked to the side and nods. "Buckle up."

-

With a squealing sound that let the nearby street boys completely startle, the Jaguar shot out of its lot and screamed over the tarmac. It shuddered and Clover and Sam barely held back their yells. A bump came over them as they went over the sidewalk ledge, the wheels finally catching the asphalt of the road itself. With a wild stomp on the gas, Alex propelled the car to a speed Sam would never dream of using if it wasn't necessary for a mission.

"Holy Hell, tiger! This car is expensive! Watch the hell out!"

"I agree, Alex, watch out!"

She steered through several streets and then, when the large building in front of her became the larger the faster, she suddenly cranked the brake, leaving a massive black plaque of vulcanized rubber on the tarmac, almost a hundred feet. With a wild jerk at the steering wheel, she lets the car turn around and slam into the parking between two cars, so hard that Sam and Clover were almost prepelled out of the side window. Alex undid the buckle and stepped out, throwing the key back at Sam and then, they all three walked up the steps to the Beverly Hills Mall. A grunt escaped Clover's lips as she felt at one of her nails.

"Aw...Broken!"

"Sorry, Clo. I'll make it up to ya." Alex said between breaths.

"...when we have the time."

Moving through the winding doors they immediately make for the telephone booth in the corner, next to the gift shop and the snackbar. Three pair of distinctly different shoes clacked against the hard, marble floor of the Mall. They skid to an abrupt halt when they see the booth being in use. It was an old lady with a small poodle. The three spies looked at one another and sighed. Clover would walk up to the elderly woman in her mink coat and bow down slightly, trying to be as kind as she can be.

"... oh and you can't believe what happened to Marcy the other day, my dear. It was such a wonderful day and her tea was just gorgeous. Oh, and I'm afraid I took two cookies as well. Yes, well I know I can't have any sugar from the dear doctor but sometimes I just can't help myself." A soft giggle in a voice, weathered by age, was heard.

"I'm sorry, lady, we are expecting a very important call."

The lady looked back for a moment, but kept talking, waving her hand around to usher to her that she has to leave her alone. After all, she was talking to her friend Grace. The poodle barked and growled a high pitched growl towards the three.

"...oh and did you see that dress she wore lately, as if the old berry was trying to find herself a new man. Ohh and at her age. Well I know she is the youngest of us with eighty-one, but dear she still knows what's worth living in life. I'm so proud of her and oh, what a delicious pair of new shoes she found... it was..."

Sam, about to blow a temper tantrum, was not really in the mood to wait when national security was at stake. Also, old people sometimes drive her crazy. That's why she severely regretted, for one, to have handed her grandparents her pager. In the summer holidays, they used to page her every hour of every day to ask how things were going, to come along once and to take those two trendy young friends she often talked about. Luckily, they lived several states away and therefore their visits to the house were limited. It was however duly noted that Sam had the most family visits of the three.

Her head reddened in annoyance and she grabbed her hands around the obnoxious little poodle suddenly. The dog let out a little whine as suddenly, the redhead's arm would swing about and propel the white little devil at one of the security guards. The large man in his black security clothing was and stood as silent as a true bred Buckingham Palace honor guard. As the poodle hit his shoulder, it felt like a tap, but as he looked to the side, he widened his eyes and started yelling, the little white fluff started to painfully bite and scratch at the big man's shoulder. Another guard looked about and didn't know what he saw. A lot of talking erupted regarding the rather interesting, but rare event.

"Get it off get it off get the damn thing OFF ME!" he yelled with a loud, deep voice. It was full of bass, trembling through the almost sterilely clean Mall. The old woman who still occupied the phone suddenly blinked, noticing what happened and let go off the hook.

"Oh my dear Poontsy!" she said in a whiny voice and as quickly as her old, wiry legs let her, she speedwalked towards the security guard in order to let him get a taste of her walking stick.

Alex, rather befuddled by Sam's rather cruel handling of the little poodle bent down to grab the horn, put it to her head "She'll call you back, Poontsy said hi," and then slammed it on the horn. She then tapped in a 13 digit number. A secured line to WOOHP would start ringing, but as the phone started and indicated that by playing long monophonic tones, Alex looked back at Sam.

"Wow, Sammie, I didn't know you didn't like poodles."

"I don't like poodles and I can't stand old people, that remind me of my mom." She answered and Clover looked between the two.

"Oh just wait. Sixty years from now you will love poodles and adore having tea with other old and forgetful people."

Sam let out an annoyed growl, and then looked around at Alex as they heard the voice of someone on the other side.

"_Jerry here."_

"Hey, Alex here. You paged us?"

"_How was dinner, you three? You took quite the time to call back, you know."_

"Sorry Jer, but we were at school, we didn't have cloned cells on us and there was this old lady..."

"_You've made your point, Alex. Okay, listen. I paged you because there is trouble at the office. We are sending alargeblack car to the corner of Smithson Drive and Lexington Road."_

"Euh..." she stuttered and then looked at the other two, who were also rather surprised.

"O...kay...?"

"_Be quick about it, proceed there on foot."_

"Yes, Jer." She saluted, but it had not the slightest bit of use, of course, since you cannot look through a phone. Sam and Clover had a large sweatdrop at the back of their heads. Alex slammed the phone on the hook after exactly 30 seconds of communication.

"Smithson Drive, Lexington Road, let's run."

"On foot?"

"No, we go saw a hole in the chassis of Sam's Jaguar and walk it there like the Flintstones do... Yes on foot!"

"Alright, alright. I've got the point." They eye one another.

"Let's roll, babes."

They leave the Mall as quickly as they entered it, this time running away the exact opposite direction.

"Hey... I've forgot to check if that new mink hat is in!"

"Clover!" A dual voice yelled.

-

They walk on, taking a left around a rather dusty building that held a tattoo parlor. Alex looked through the window while running by. She wondered if she should get one, but moved on without thinking too much about it. It was only one short mile, about 1400 meters and four streets. Walking past a rather shamelessly rich neighborhood, they sneak a peek at the condos they pass.

It was only about five minutes after which the three girls, all in possession of at least quite good stamina, approached the designated corner. At the very same moment, a large black car came riding by from behind them and stopped right in front of them with squealing brakes. The three girls look around to one another and smile.

"That's the closest we've ever come to a limo." They giggled together as the doors swung open.

"Get in, ladies," a calm voice from within the car said. It was the chauffeur, but he had a strangely familiar voice. The girls widened their eyes and laughed.

"Jer?"

Jerry had a complete different look at the moment. He was no longer the 'stuck up brit' with his stuck up British tics, he wore a black leather jacket, an Armani sweater, a black Pierre Cardin pair of jeans and an expensive Carhartt Jean Belt. Also, a pair of Ray Ban shades were on his face, giving him an all the more tough look. Still, his bald head came through, as well as his lean face and his little mustache.

"Get in the back, we must be on our way."

The girls complied, but as they did, they looked at him and asked him a question.

"What's going on, Jer, aren't we going to WOOHP?"

"Negative. We are going somewhere else. I will tell you as soon as we are on the way."

15.10 PM... As they exited Beverly hills over the freeway, Jerry suddenly started talking. His eyes were right in front of him, offering the road close attention. The car passed the 74 mile marker at the very ring of his voice. He spoke with gravity.

"Sam, Clover, Alex. Everything all right?"

"Yes, Jerry, what's going on? I've never seen WOOHP work like this..." Clover asked for a start.

"Perilous times ask for odd measures, dear." He would slightly sigh, his hands on the car radio, remodulating the frequency to find a channel. Surprisingly many channels had static on them, now and then a slight tune of music, but overall, there was nothing on. Sam, who sat in the middle, looked through between the two front seats, watching the frequencies being altered and listening in.

"That is strange. Almost all broadcasts are taken off the air..."

"Very astute, Sam." Jerry said, a slightly confirming tune in his voice.

"We have a problem of global scope, girls. A very fast moving problem. We noticed half an hour ago, and it is getting worse by the second."

All three of the girls leant in, Clover's white short pants slightly creaking as she did. They were listening very closely now.

"On approximately fourteen hundred and forty-two hours today, a sudden spike of data flow had been noticed by WOOHP intelligence." Jerry started his explanation.

"In these cases, WOOHP normally analyzes them and catalogues them, as we do more than simply provide secret, global protection. We analyze the flow of money and data worldwide as well, using these intelligence to supply additional information to other agencies and archiving the financial and digital paths taken by people of a suspected affiliation with syndicates, terrorists and countries that are not part of the NATO and have expressed multiple accounts of hostilities towards the United States of America the last few decades.

This data spike," Jerry continues," was thought to be part of an attempt of external intrusion into governmental data systemes. However, it proved to be a far more dangerous problem. It was administered from the inside of the conjoined servers of the FBI, CIA and NSA. In short, an illegal access was made to the government net."

The three spies were listening closely, leaning back against the backrests of the seats, Sam having her arms folded, a thinking pose she used rather often.

"But isn't it the job of government officials to trace and eradicate these digital violations?"

"Normally it is, Sam, however, this is not a normal predicament. A virus of yet unknown origin has been released directly into the FBI servers." Jerry's eyes narrowed. He rarely has expressed such a stoic behavior while briefing them. Mostly he was one to deliver a funny note to the song or to point out to the girl's exaggerated penchant for shopping and fancy clothes, but this time, he was a hundred percent focused to the job at hand. Maybe he even expressed a slight hint of fear for what was to come. He narrowed his eyes and beamed onto the road, like he had tunnel vision.

"This particular virus multiplies right through the main roots of our national net. Every server it encounters, it assimilates. A seemingly unstoppable Trojan type virus, it diverts control to an unknown location. It reaps system after system, collecting and hashing data as well as creating a type of protection no one has ever seen before. Like the HIV-virus does to humans, it attacks the very foundations of server's defenses and automatically devises a way to phase right through them. It conquers the net at an astonishing speed and up till now has a success ratio of 99.97 percent. All this, WOOHP intelligence has been able to deduce, before the problems started."

They eyed one other and then sighed for a moment, looking at the landscape, that went from city, to empty to treegrowth, a welcome, calming surrounding that worked relaxing on all four of them.

"God, that sounds bad." Clover mumbled and then snapped her gaze upwards, looking at Clover with wide eyes. "The internet failure!." Then, Alex also looked at the other two, then smiled.

"Yes!"

Clover, Jerry and Sam squinted their eyes at Alex' elation.

"What are you so happy about."

"That means that Ninja Chess isn't the culprit after all.. Teeheeheeeeej.."

"ALEX! This is very serious." Sam said at her in a slightly maternal tone of voice.

"Sorry... Sorry."

"Because WOOHP is a very secret organization even most CIA officials know little or nothing about and because several technological innovations regarding digital safety are unique in its protection, the virus has not yet been able to penetrate our core server, but it has already overrun a very large amount of local servers across the country. By effects of this rapid expansions have been noticed throughout 13 of our states already." Jerry went on, in the mean time slightly adjusting the mirror at the ceiling of the car.

"Like the internet failures at our school?" Alex asked.

"Yes, that and more." Jerry answered, looking to the side for a moment. He eyed Sam through the mirror.

"How about the connections to other continents?" The voice of Sam rung through calmly.

"A direct linkup to Asia has spread the virus there as well, though yet in an infant state. In Europe, the computer virus is yet cornered, as almost directly after having received word of this threat, the digital borders have been shut down and heavily firewalled." Jerry sighed, and continued after taking a bite from a sandwich.

"In the area of influence this virus has already acquired for itself most of the functions that are supported by digital systems. Traffic lights throughout multiple cities have ceased to function or are functioning irregularly. Reports of over 4 hundred car accidents have been called in, because of these faltering systems. Mobile networks are completely down across eight states, internet connections have almost completely become inaccessible wherever this virus expands towards. TV and Radio broadcasts have almost completely halted, some normal phone networks that use the internet network as a backup or as a general transport medium are also down. Even normal analogue phone lines are greatly impaired, because their junctions are mostly operated by ..."

"...Servers," Sam interrupted him for a moment, but did so only in a rather soft voice.

"Exactly," he added and looked over his shoulder.

"Damn, its even worse than I thought then..." Clover slightly looked down, her head cupped in her hand. She closed her eyes for a moment, but then opened one, looking out over the trees that whiz by. They were moving at a rather large speed.

"I guess the tachometers are out of order as well?" Sam muttered, Alex remained quiet for a while. She really looked forward to her Combat Ki lessons, but it seemed she was going to miss them big time. Jerry had a slight drop of sweat running down the back of his head.

"Time is of the essence." Jerry said in his sincere, British voice.

"Then let me humor you... Why didn't we take a jet?" Alex raised her eyebrow, with good reason.

"It appears WOOHP is the victim of its own technology," Jerry answered, rather moodily. He had all the reason to be extremely stoic, it was clear now.

"All WOOHP's air vehicles operate on a wireless network. We are almost completely cut off from the rest of the world. The systems on board of our jets are completely integrated. It would have taken four days to strip one of them bare to stand alone computers. Our only choice is to go there by driving there."

"And why are you here, Jerry? Shouldn't you be at WOOHP yourself? Sam asked.

"I am going with you, girls." Jerry was very clear when he said that.

"Really?" the three young women asked at the same time.

"Yes. My organization is dead in the water. I know WOOHP's intelligence detail will do anything to keep its data out of this virus's grasp. There, I am of little use now. So I decided to lead this mission in person.The objective is to try and find the root of this infestation and attempt to counterand annihilate it from whence it came."

A mission alongside Jerry. That was a first, to say the least. They looked at one another and smiled for a little bit. Jerry moved his hand towards a large box on top of the seat next to him. "If you ladies are hungry, I have prepared food for our coming trip."

With a cheer of joy, Alex grabbed the box and put it on her lap, bringing Jerry to squinting with a slightly quivering brow. "...Right." The spies make good on their hunger and take a slight snack, as well as a pet flask of coca cola each.

"Say, Jerry. Are there any other operatives helping us?" Clover asked. "It would be terrible to do this all alone. If I worry this much by myself I will look as an old fart within the next few years," She whined.

"Well, Clover, there are three other teams in action. Agents Davidson, Johner and Ferguson are at NSA Headquarters, Maryland, Agents Friday and Monaghan went to New York, to the Federal Bureau where we will join them as soon as possible. Last, there is also Britney..."

"Britney?" The three girls exclaimed simultaneously. "How is the sweetheart doing?" Clover asked with a grin.

"Britney has gone to Arlington, Virginia, to gather information from one of WOOHP's sources in the Pentagon. She will call in in about 24 hours."

"Good, I'm looking forward to seeing her again." Sam said with a flushed grin. Alex took another apple to fuel her aggressive metabolism and put the box down in the abundant legspace of the large vehicle.

-

Several hours went by as they reached the I-40 freeway. 1230 miles of road without pretty much of a single bend or passer-by. Alex has taken over the wheel from Jerry as well as taking up the car into a lot higher speed until it reached the speed limiter on 260 kilometers per hour. She certainly knew how to speed things up. The forest had rescinded and a desert landscape had taken its place. Faraway blocky mountains went by very slowly. Jerry now sat in between Clover and Sam on the back seat, munching calmly at a chicken drum. Looking out in front of him, with his back calmly pressed against the rest. He had driven for quite a while and needless to say with all these stressy happenings behind him, he was rather tired.

A few moments later, a sigh came from Clover's mouth as she looked out over the landscape shooting by.

"Man, this is so boring." She lets out an annoyed grunt.

"Bored like a moose." Alex did the same.

"Hold yourselves together. Remain focused. We have a long drive to go." Jerry attempted to liven up the three. Alex started to fondle the radio again in an attempt to find a radio station that has not yet been impaired by the virus. After a long array of misplaced attempts, she is finally getting something without static.

"... strange computer illness has spread throughout 18 states now, where more and more problems are confirmed. It has also been confirmed that it is now too late for a national shutdown. The virus has taken control of all fifteen main router junctions in the entire United States. The country has been virtually cut off from the outer world. Also in other continents it has been confirmed that the unknown infestation has gained a foothold. All flights, national and international, over the entire world, have been suspended indefinitely... ... estimates made that the entire continent of Northern America will be overrun in the next 40 hours." A sudden static started to erupt, and Jerry slightly puffed, assuming that this channel has also been cut off, but ten second later, it came back.

"...many major cities, evacuation has begun. Many people however are attempting to escape with their own vehicles. American's Metropolises are now in a state of chaos, all roads are completely jammed. This sudden rush of traffic in the streets of America's cities have proven counterproductive, as an evacuation order has been issued far too late. However, there was no one that could predict such an awful calamity. Words have reached us that effectively, 79 percent of the entire American military has been disabled. The nuclear reactors aboard aircraft carriers and submarines shut down as soon as they came in contact with the digital infestation. Many disabled submarines have sunken down and imploded into the depths of the oceans, taking many lives, but also on land, casualties have been made by both human error as well as faltering computer systems. Power failures have caused people to be trapped in subways, elevators and office buildings. It was clear that the world has not been prepared thoroughly enough against dangers of this extreme magnitude."

Clover, Sam and Jerry looked at one another, but then the gazes fell towards Clover in general. She seemed to have her face pulled in an uneasy frown.

"I have to go..."


	5. Tesseract I C5: The Arlington Scandal

Chapter V: The Arlington Scandal.

It is 0.10 AM, in Arlington, Virginia, the sun long since having sunken behind the horizon and making place for an almost full moon that shone brightly on the soil below. Of the cars that were parked outside and inside the Pentagon building, most reflected less of a distinction than normally. Ordinarily, most cars would be big, black and heavy. Government agents all used to be completely patched in to the net, but now most connections were almost completely scrambled, it was a slightly more colorful bunch. Agents took their own cars for a change, because these vehicles were a lot safer at the time. Even then, most of the agents that made it to the Pentagon came from the smaller cities around, for the larger ones were still in a state of chaos. A good deal of Arlington's population was still attempting to leave the city, while another large amount of people stayed indoors, closed all windows and doors and tried to watch radio and/or TV. And of course there was always the third group of people that either panicked or took advantage of the situation, looting and pillaging stores that are now unattended to. Police Departments were completely shut down and law enforcement was left completely without effective power. Since it all went so quickly, there was barely any national alarm. Though the more brilliant employees at the security agencies attempted to use their hacking skills to pluck information from the completely barred internet, the general populace had no way of communicating left. The phone lines were jarred with a conflux of strange beeps and whirs, completely jamming analogue communication lines from the junctions on.

The Pentagon, the large, low-to-the-ground structure with the unique shape, was the hotbed of activity, as as many government agents as possible were entwined in the attempts to counter this computer virus. Hundreds of hands were steering mice and rattling over keyboards alike. In specific, 621 employees had shown up to combat the threat, thus far without little concrete results. It was hard working with systems that were already a victim of this dreadful hydra. It was euphemized that it 'posed a slight challenge' to try and navigate through the infested servers. Heels were heard clacking against the concrete stairways, going up towards level three, followed by the sound of ordinary, slightly squeaking shoes. These shoes came from a regular government office worker following behind a young woman. This woman was formally dressed in a black suit from Armani that extends in a well fitting black skirt of matching fabric. Underneath, she wore a Mahoney colored blouse and in both this blouse and the suit, her curvaceous forms came out pretty well. Her hair was long and smooth, slightly swaying back and forth, her steps carrying her up to the door of the fourth floor. As she stood in front of it, her face was reflected in the glass of the door. It was Britney Stanford.

"I'm sorry that we have to walk all this way," the slightly overweight government employee uttered as he regained his stature by playing his hands around his tie and readjusting it on the right place.

"I don't really mind, Mr. Fowley." Britney looked back towards Agent Bart Fowley, who made the last step onto the fourth floor. When there, he retook the lead and guided the woman into the depths of the Pentagon.

Every office room they passed by, they noticed the doors were wide open. Everyone was talking with everyone else, a large, big collective of governmental computer nerds, bent over a keyboard, a can of black coffee and a box of bagels. They were very busy, seeking in every nook and cranny of the infested web. As long as they had a chance to make a difference, they were not allowed to leave their post. Agent Fowley walked into a corridor to his left, followed closely by the neatly clothed Britney. Her eyes beamed upon the man, not letting her concentration waver. This was her first solo mission, and she was very nervous to be sure. The first time that she had to manage on her own, the first time that she had to rely solely on her own talents and skills had to be this time, a mission that quickly inflated to global proportions. She had to remember everything she had ever learned in her career in espionage without the help of other operatives.

"Come in, my dear," the slightly flirtatious man grinned and put his hands behind his back, moving up towards the chair behind the desk. He then sat down and looked back upon Britney. "Take a seat."

Britney sat down, moving her hands to pull her skirt over as much of her legs as she could. The desk was a wooden one, with almost the same color of Mahoney as Britney's blouse. On it stood a PC system that was activated. A screen was asking for a User handle and a password. The slightly sluggish man suddenly erupted in a rather exhilarated rattling over the keyboard.

_**Handle: **Fowley, B_

_**Password: xxxxxxxxxxxxx**_

He pressed enter and a Windows ME Professional screen became visible. His eyes were diverted from the screen to look back at the pretty young woman. She moved, while sitting on her chair.

"We have been able to obtain a small amount of information about the virus." The man said, as he adjusted his glasses upon his face.

"We have ascertained the individual ports that are affected by this virus. It has the ability to phase through three hundred different port handles and therefore can infiltrate any existing computer system. The next logical step would be to attempt and find out exactly what ports these are."

Britney listened and looked alongside the man at the screen. Her eyes slightly widened, her hand playing with one of her bluish locks.

"Hmm.." she mumbled and eyed the information, Then, she looked at the man himself.

Britney was a spy, like Clover, Sam and Alex, however, she had a very different talent and has been educated by WOOHP accordingly; she had been trained as a profiler and she was an expert when it comes to the human mind. Raising her eyebrow and eyeing the man as he spoke, she folded her arms in front of her chest calmly, tugging slightly at her blouse.

"I need to know everything you know." She calmly said. "This knowledge may help our organization to build up a defense before it is too late." She kept looking at him, the man remained silent for a while.

"Is there something you're not telling me? Is there something wrong?" a slight glimmer was noticeable upon her eyes as she asked. The man remained silent for a while. He was thinking how to say this, if ever. His eyes closed for a while and he moved his hand to rub over his eyes.

"I'm afraid we have discovered something else. Something very scary." He folded his hands and looked out over the screen. A sigh escaped his lips as he moved his hands over the keyboard and grunted, his face hardened.

"Several months ago, the CIA started a new project. A project that bore the name _Tesseract_." His eyes turn back to Britney, his legs suddenly swung up to lean on top of the desk. He tried to calm down.

"The Tesseract program was an attempt to create a digital 'agent'. It was meant to be able to infiltrate certain computer systems and then either take control of them or destroy them." His eyes started to swell with a certain exhilaration.

"Wars are no longer waged over the possession of lands or riches. It is no longer countries and people that are conquered. In the modern world, information is power and access to all information means superiority over your enemies. Secretly, deep inside the FBI and the CIA, computer scientists have worked to devise a new weapon that would turn every firewall in an open door, every line of protection into a wide-open entrance, every enemy server into a slave."

Britney sat up and widened her eyes. She was completely glued to this man, her eyes never leaving him as he elaborated.

"Computers, like human beings, exist in an environment. The difference is that for a computer, the environment is programmed. Do you know what a Tesseract is, miss Stanford?"

"Not really," Britney said, however keeping attention towards the man.

"A Tesseract is the mathematic term for a hypercube, a four-dimensional cube." He folded his hands together and looked Britney in the eyes.

"A hypercube is an object which has its shape parameterized by four coordinates. The Tesseract Program was an attempt to restructure data... in data." She listened closely as the man told her this.

"You mean a program in a program?" she asked with a cocked up eyebrow.

"Something like that, yes. The Tesseract program is an attempt to wildly increase storage capacity without having to increase the size of a hard disk. Not just a program in a program. A computer in a computer!"

Britney slightly widened her eyes and sat up. "What went wrong?"

"Everything, my dear. Everything." The man said, fondling his clothing.

"You see. The Tesseract program was brought to life with the idea of rendering enemy systems inert and therefore bringing America and NATO an exceptional advantage in case of a conflict, but it was clear to us that this newfound power over information brought forth too much opportunity to abuse it. This radical project had been voted off by the government, the European Union and NATO also expressed opinions against deployment of such a weapon. And with good reason, for the one in control of this weapon would be able to patch into any system he or she wanted."

"Well apparently, Mr Fowley, that's exactly what happened here."

"Indeed."

"But how," Beverly moved one of her legs over the other, tired of the man's attempts to sneak a peek. Once this whole ordeal is over, she will certainly tell Jerry how much comfort just a few inches extra of fabric would bring.

"Didn't the CIA take measures to store the program away in a high security vault?"

"Even Better," Agent Fowley answered. "The program was to be decommissioned and destroyed."

"Well obviously, that did not happen."

"No, it didn't. That tells us three distinct things." The man fondles his tie.

Britney looked at him, but suddenly stands up, walking around the desk, her heels clacking against the linoleum floor, towards the window. She leant against the window sill, looking out over the dark sky, her gaze pulled towards that one large source of light, the moon. She was thinking for a little while.

"A government agent with...," she started, but then thought for a while, her gaze drawn away from the window to intercept the corpulent man in the seat, "...with a high clearance level must have prevented its destruction."

"Indeed. It also tells us that..." he leant back in his chair and put his leg up higher on the desk, "... since the only high ranking officers that have access to it are a hand full of generals and the president himself..."

Britney rubbed her hand beneath her chin and looked at herself in the thick, armored glass of the Pentagon.

"... whomever did it must have done it here." Britney added, looking at Agent Fowley.

"Exactly."

"But, if I'm not incorrect, Mr. Fowley, we haven't ascertained exactly where they released the program, have we?"

"Not yet, but the third thing it tells us is that we don't have to." The man grinned, standing up and leaving his computer on. He bent over for a moment to lock the system and then walked towards the door. "Follow me."

* * *

The two leave the dusty office chamber, of which you could very easily tell that it was his. It was not really clean and papers were stacked in every corner. His coat and his hat were lying on the ground rather than dangling from the coat hooks. A slightly homely mess that perfectly reflected his appearance. He closed the door behind him after Britney left the room. She waited close by and as he started to walk towards the elevator, she followed him, meeting up to walk by his side.

"On C-Level, 20 of our best 'white hats' are attempting to scratch data loose from the infested servers."

"What kind of data?"

"Officer logs, data logs, registry logs, all kind of logs, except for the wooden ones."

Britney raised her eyebrow, looking at him in a bored look. His puns are extremely bad. Fowley slightly chuckled and then, seeing Britney was not really amused, he cleared his throat, blushed slightly and suddenly retained a stoic expression. His hand extended to touch the lift button, but then, Britney tapped him on the shoulder.

"They don't work anymore, remember."

"Crap." He grunted through between his teeth and walked towards the door that lead into one of the main stairways. Once more, Britney calmly followed.

"Go on, Mr Fowley." The static young woman demanded. He cleared his throat once again. It was a rather annoying sound, as if a small bug was stuck inside of his throat. He moved his hand upon his neck and rubbed it, in order to loosen the mucus in there.

"Well, the attempt to find out possible culprits has already returned one likely possibility."

A large locale with multiple office cubicles filled with zealously working government hackers was well illuminated. Each cubicle was formed by a wooden separation wall, some of which held two or three people bent over one screen and looking over the shoulders of the man at work. It was a complete circus, papers were flying around and printers were red hot from heavy duty. Conversations that went from cubicle to cubicle throughout the entire locale made it a web of voices one that hadn't worked with these people before wouldn't possibly be able to correlate. Britney was astounded by the level of performance shown inside of these four walls.

"Fowley!" One man called out towards the two that had just entered. His screen showed someone's individual record. Fowley moved closed and tapped the man on the shoulder in a friendly manner. This man had an appearance you wouldn't possibly expect from a CIA member. In fact, the entire workforce inside this room looked as if they were working in a down town delivery service.

To be honest, the general CIA employee doesn't wear a multi-grand suit with five in-line and authentic cuff buttons, but they cloth rather averagely, with blue jeans and normal shirts. You could say someone in service to the government is just like someone in service of a company office, but then the office is the government. A simple blouse was mostly more than enough, no one who would point you to an official dresscode of any kind when appearing in a wide blazer and a Hawaii shirt.

"I think we have our man," the man, with blonde dreads and a dirty beard and an ID card on his chest saying _Parker, P. _exclaimed, "and it's just in time too, because we are quickly losing our already loosened grip upon the handful of systems we can still influence."

"Good work, Petie!" Fowley said cheerfully, holding on to his shoulder and looking over it. Britney raised her eyebrow.

"Petie? Peter Parker?" Britney asked. Mr. Parker grinned, playing with one of his blonde dreads.

"Neh, Pete Parker. I'm Spidey's evil hacker twin." He grinned a little bit and put a cigarette in his mouth. Looking at her as he lit it, he folded his hands behind his head and leaning back slightly. Taking a calming drag from the cig, he closed his eyes and puffed out a well of smoke.

Britney, Fowley and Parker looked at the screen, as of a sudden, two of his colleagues move in behind them, making it a bundle of bodies, leaning on top of one other to see what face had turned up.

"General... Manfred Ryson," three of the five said simultaneously, as then, the group looked at one another. Parker kept working the computer, reading through his record and examining the confirmed times he was inside the Pentagon building. "Oooo.. My hacker-sense is tingling." Fowley chuckled at Parker's words.

"During the years that the Tesseract prototype secretly laid in the drawer instead of having been destroyed, General Ryson was the only one that frequently opened the intended vault on certain key times. Since there are different types of objects in this vault, most probably top secret aerial photographs of countries that are officially allied and some of the CIA's trinkets, gadgets and stuff, there was little hype about this. Beverly stood by, taking some breathing room as the four people almost squeezed her in between. She didn't feel like making a late night parfait in the middle of a government building.

"Okay, question..." she looked between them. She immediately had all attention. She certainly got better since the first time she became a WOOHP spy. She already had this gravity to her, even though sometimes she still seems a wee tad naïve.

"If this virus is so top secret, how come you know about it?"

"Because of me," a voice boomed through the entire cubicle. Though throughout the entire office locale, talking had ensued, as soon as this man who just got in let himself, be heard, the silence was truly deafening. He was not comparable to anyone in this room, except maybe to Britney herself, in the quality and distinction his clothes carried forth to him. The ID card on the chest of his bluish grey suit showed his name, serial and ID.

_Harris, F – 191.737.281 B_

_Dept. of Defence, CIA off. Level 14, USA_

_Clearance 1770-880-A+_

_G7 Ser.: BC342E – 414B – F3AE90_

"General Harris?"


	6. Tesseract I C6: Glimmer in the Dark

**Chapter VI: Glimmer in the Dark**

The faces of everyone in the room shortly turned to stone as they got a good look of the elderly man's face. It was a well known face, carried with dignity and distinction, a face that belonged to no one less than the President's personal Defense counselor, general Fritz Harris. His face was weathered from a long life of being in the heart of conflicts, a Vietnam veteran and supplier of troops for the Cold War, the man was born in the ensuing World War 2. When America first became part of this global conflict with the attack placed upon Pearl Harbor, he was about 10 months old. He pretty much grew up with war still fresh in mind. The horrors of fascism finally conquered, young Harris often portrayed himself as a soldier of that war and thought of how it would be if he were to make a difference. In a way, fear breeds fear breeds fear, a constant upheld as long as conflict was near. So, he aspired to become the object of his fascination and pursue a career in the military. The Vietcong, the Iraqi, the Kosovo incident, the Israeli and recently the Taliban, he saw them all, but the greatest scars of his life were brought to him in the intense demoralization people became victim of in the jungles of Vietnam. Those who returned from there had their nerves shattered and have gone through among the greatest of mental ordeals known to man, but were received back in dishonor by an ungrateful people with no notion of being in the zone of battle. A people they were, that couldn't even see past the defeat of their great nation. The general's face displayed a great many things; wisdom, pain, satisfaction, determination, yet a strange kindness.

"Yes," he calmly said and looked at the people that were turned towards him not without a certain surprised look on their faces. He suddenly opened his mouth again.

"I knew of the Tesseract program and when I read over the particulars of this outbreak, I immediately looked into it. To do so, I needed the help of what was left of the agencies, so I uncovered the secret."

"General," Pete Parker suddenly addressed him and although he did not look it, nor did it look like he had to with how he looked and what he wore, he saluted him and nodded.

"General Manfred Ryson, huh..." They looked at one another and Harris rubbed his hands against his beard, but as of a sudden, something happened throughout the room. An awkward click was heard and the sound of a large dynamo stopping was zooming through the ceiling. Everyone looked at the ceiling lights as they failed, block by block. The general, Mr. Fowley, Parker and Britney, who were close to the foremost right cubicle were the last to fall victim to the shroud of darkness. All kinds of voices complained, clearly surprised by the sudden darkness, people were grabbing in front of them to be able to navigate, though the men and women that were working in their cubicles had an edge in visibility, for their computer monitors still emitted a mild dosage of light. Up till now, that is.

Even more complaining was heard. An wave of profanity in an ocean of elevated voice patterns. A man and a women were holding hands and used the touch in their free hands to find the way to the exit. The dark skies gave barely any light, as the moon was on the other side of the building and the streetlights close by were also completely deactivated, it was as if the building and everything in its proximity suffered a power loss.

"What is god damn happening?"

"My logical bomb!"

"I'm blind!"

The general suddenly found himself in a position where he needed some time to think of what was best to do. There were over fifty employees in this room who completely lost track of where they are. Suddenly, an arm extended towards the general's shoulder; it was Britney's.

"Stay calm, general." She stood up and looked around. It was as if she could see around her perfectly, her irises seemed to slightly glow in the dark, a light effect that did not escape the general's notice.

"What's with your eyes, Agent?" he asked in mild surprise.

"Thermal imaging lenses," she answered, a slight sway of her head making her soft bluish hair wave about. Through the thermal imaging equipment, she saw a dark greenish haze, with orange lighting bodies of heat. She tilted her head and sighed.

"I'm afraid I haven't brought light amplification goggles." She looked at the general and then Fowley suddenly walked away from the group.

"That can be helped, let's get out of here."

The four people started to walk towards the exit, dodging people who have no idea where they are going, now and then hearing somebody bump into something. They moved through between office cubicles, now and then needing to cut through a crowd.

"You're standing on my foot!"

"Sorry, ouch!"

"Ouch? You stood on my foot."

"My eyes!"

"Oh, sorry." The unknown man retracted his hand and moved to the side as the firm grip of the general's hand slightly shoved him aside. Britney reached the door, with two hands holding on to her shoulders. The four people were holding each other's shoulders in order not to loose one another in the darkness of the locale. Britney's hands wrap around the doorknob and attempted to open it, but then, she widened her eyes, the pulling force she let loose upon the knob did not merit a result.

"What the ... It's locked."

"What?" Fowley said, feeling a quiver run through his body. He didn't like where this was going.

Pete looked around, his breathing slightly accelerated all of a sudden, most employers inside the room starting to feel an unwelcome sensation. The feeling of being shut inside with no lights. No senses they can use to navigate are left, the sensation of being stranded on an island in the middle of a nightly ocean floods their souls.

"This is starting to look like a..." general Harris widened his eyes

"...trap." Britney suddenly went into action, not really worried about her short skirt anymore. After all, she was the only one that saw anything still. Her muscles tense and she lifts up her right leg. With a sudden outburst of energy, it moved towards the flat of the door. The sole of her medium heels impacted with the doorframe, but gave a sound of a stone slamming into metal. The shock of impact was correlated back through her well shaped leg and distributed over her physique. She clenched her eyelids into a narrow squint and bounced back, feeling over her shin. She shook her head and looked up towards the general. "The door's too strong. Do you have a weapon?"

"No, I haven't taken my gun with me," he answered and as soon as he did, a flash of light shone over the eyes of both Britney and Harris.

"Found a flashlight," Pete said triumphantly as then a strangepuffing sound came from above.

"What the hell?" Fowley complained.

"It's..."

All of a sudden, people who were close to the center of the room suddenly breathed deeper, their eyes widening, their pupils dilating. Their hands moved up over their body, trying to feel themselves, hands moving through their hair, over their face, but slowly and inadvertently towards their chest. They looked between one another and coughed.

"Do you feel this cramped as... well.." they eyed one another and felt something eat at them from the inside. Their hearts were racing inside of their chests.

"What's happening?" one of them yelled in utter scare as two people were dropping to their knees. They have lost all sensation and energy to stand, their chests hurting and shaking at each heart beat. It all went very fast. General Harris, Britney and the two employees moved to the corner of the room.

"Britney! What's happening?" the general demanded to know

"They're losing consciousness, gripping at their chest and necks... It's like they're suffocating!" she whined, pretty scared.

"Oh no..." Pete would widen his eyes and look around through the sea of blackness.

In the center of the room, more people started to drop to the ground and in their seats, trying without success to level out their breathing, stomping a hand at their chest, groaning in heartache. The general gritted his teeth.

"Carbon Monoxide!" He yelled out loud.

"Take a deep breath before it gets here!" They said together and the four did so immediately, taking as much air as they could and then holding their hands to their mouths. They looked around quickly.

**Carbon monoxide** was leaking through ceiling ducts, a well set trap by a malign mastermind. A deadly, dangerous trap it was, since carbon monoxide (CO), a product of combustion when not enough air is introduced to the reaction, was highly toxic. Carbon monoxide molecules bond to the hemoglobin molecules inside of erythrocytes (red blood cells), and impair the bonding of Oxygen (O2) to these hemoglobin junctions. The problem lies in the fact that carbon monoxide bonds against this hemoglobin are about 170 times as strong and firm as oxygen bonds. The carbon monoxide will clog up all the human body's ability to transfer oxygen to the organs that need it and therefore require the heart to pump harder and harder to circulate sufficient oxygen. The result of carbon monoxide poisoning is therefore almost always an agonizing stroke, followed by a cardiac arrest.

The four people in the corner of the office knew that they were in grave peril, the general was cramped as he would hold his breath, his scare not allowing him to say or breathe. He did not want it to end this way. Most of the people that were further away did not hear the generals claim, man after man falling to the ground in an agonizing stroke, each drawn breath increasing the amount of toxin in their blood, unwittingly stampeding towards the inevitable stopping of the heart. To Britney, it was a grueling nightmare vision and she shielded her eyes from what was going on. The orange blobs of heat were falling to the ground one by one, but the hands in front of her eyes only blinded out the vision with a far too bright orange color. She closed her eyes and almost lost the oxygen stored in her mouth. Thus far, they have no toxin in their system. The ducts were still squeezing out the abyssal death gas. It was a very dirty attack on their lives, considering carbon monoxide was insidiously scentless. The general tore the flashlight out of Pete's hands and shone around the darkened room, suddenly having a body fall up against his chest. It was one of Pete's friends, almost causing Pete to go into an involuntary gag. Wide eyed, his throat and shoulders heavily quivering in his last few seconds of consciousness, before he sunk to the ground, his heart quickly worked itself to death. They started walking, Britney, Harris, Pete, Fowley, they all held their lips strongly together, not allowing themselves to take a single breath from their nostrils. Their gazes were erratic at best, always watching, always attempting to catch a single glimpse of something familiar. This increased as soon as the strangest nightmarish sounds pulled through the entire building. Distant screams, sounds of metal against metal, gunshots that echoed through the very bulkheads of the entire Pentagon. It was as if a mild night at the office took place for a dream, then a nightmare, then, a war zone.

Several coughs played through the room, as ever more people started dying. On the ground, bodies piled up, but in the outer reaches of the chamber, more people that held their breath were nervously attempting to find a way out. It was unnerving. The cone of light coming from the general's flashlight shone over the walls of the office room and then, with a slight shake of his head, Britney and himself started moving into the office cubicles, but first, they looked upon the other two, ushering the two to follow behind them. Britney's hand travels through the drawers to try and find something. She hoped for a firearm, but she was let down. There was nothing here, so she speeded to the next cubicle, the General followed, pointing the flashlight wherever he gazed. They had to nervously look down as everywhere over the ground, dead and dying people were lying. Fowley tripped over a large black man that was face down on the ground, almost swearing and with that, almost losing the air supply in his lungs. Britney slammed her fist against the side of the cubicle in a mixture of fear and frustration and causes a metallic sound as the rather weak cubicle separation wall displayed an elastic movement of about an inch, until it slammed against a heavy weight. The general turned his flashlight towards it, seeing a large metal closet. He stood in front of it and yanked at the door, opening it up and looking inside.

A fire extinguisher.

They looked at one another, the general and Britney moving their hands towards the fire extinguisher at the same time, their heads colliding. "Mmh!" they rubbed their soar skulls and the general ushered for the large fire extinguisher. A fire extinguisher is basically a pressurized tank of carbonic acid, that is quite inert and extremely cold, creating a blanket of foam that melted very quickly and caused a rapid suffocation of the fire. But right now, they are thinking about an other use for this object. About 30 seconds have gone by and things were getting perilous. Not everyone had the stamina to hold their breath for longer than a minute. Fowley, the corpulent upstairs office worker, was getting a red face already but held out due to pure willpower. Britney carried the fire extinguisher all the way to the reinforced Pentagon door and closed her eyes, knowing that the effort quickly drenched her lungs. Beads of sweat centered on her forehead as she put the fire extinguisher down, its bottom facing the door. She looked to the side at the general, who knew what she was planning. He came towards her, followed by Pete and Fowley. Holding a coat rack on a metal base, he clenched his fingers around it and slightly pushed Britney away. His mouth tightened and he gritted his teeth, thrusting his hands down to hit the bottleneck of the fire extinguisher. He did it once, twice, three times, but then the fourth time the rack slammed down, the pressure stop in the mouth piece bursted and exploded off. With a wild outburst of ice cold foam, the tank of the extinguisher was propelled like a small rocket, suddenly riling downwards and slamming right through the strong door. The surprise made the four stumble, but what followed made them fall right over.

The tank bursted through the door and slammed into the corridor wall, rupturing and exploding wildly, a shudder pulling through the walls in a powerful, spherical shockwave. The door that was torn outwards from the tank piercing it was blown back into the office, highly fragmented pieces cutting through the air and littering everything in the path of the door opening. The explosion however created a burst of high combustion, fire, which pulled inwards through the room and throughout the corridor. A wild sea of flames pulled over the ceiling rather swiftly, raining down licks of fire passed Britney and the General, who were halfly huddled together, as Harris pretty much dropped on top of her. Fowley and Pete were wiggling on the ground, suddenly yelling out, thinking they were going to die. The general already knew that this was either going to go incredibly right or extraordinarily wrong. The fire pulled along the ceiling and the cubicles, singeing the wooden cubicle separation walls dearly. As the building stopped shuddering after that explosion, the quickly expanding fire stopped again, except for the separation walls that caught fire.

An eerie silence filled the room, several corpses were slightly smoking, almost everyone who wasn't already down for the count, was now. The ones that weren't killed by the carbon monoxide were burning now. Britney, general Harris, Fowley and Parker were probably the only ones still alive. Coughing and cursing, Britney came up and suddenly held her eyes wide. She was breathing.

"Oh shit!" her hands grasp around her neck.

"It's okay, Agent Britney." The general held onto her shoulder."

"The explosion has combusted the carbon monoxide." They stood up quickly, Fowley still a little bit groggy from the shockwave. The stench of burning flesh reached their nose, a grossed out expression on Pete's and Britney's faces. The ducts were still sending in the toxin, but there was a short pause.

"We must find gas masks... Now, quickly, take a deep breath before it's back!" The general yelled and did what he said himself. The four take another deep breath, Pete slightly shaking his head at the fifty-something bodies all over the ground. This was not the work day he had in mind. They move out through the door hole and run down the corridor, the General pointing his flash light ahead of them. He knew where to look. On the other side of this wing, there was a janitor compartment, in which there were several dozens of gas masks stalled.

As they got to this wing's main corridor, they noticed its lights were still activated. Batting a raised eyebrow at that, they look at one another and stand up in the hall. Pete suddenly moved towards a wall mounted console, pressing several buttons at which a safety door rolled down.

"What the hell are you doing?" Britney tried to stop him, but it's too late.

"Floor 5, Wing E, Section 2 is hereby hermetically sealed." He grunted. The general nodded.

"Wise decision," the general answered and looked at Britney.

"The air here is still breathable."

"What way do we go? What do we do?" Fowley wildly breathed, almost hyperventilating. He of the four, had the lousiest stamina and was the closest to suffocation. He stood in the wall, where the lights were dimmed, now and then a whirring sound as the argon lamps faltered.

_Dzzzt... zzzt.. Dzzz..zzzt._

The ground was littered with papers, the walls filled with holes made by bullets, but you would look out on a gaping hole where the elevator was. Dead bodies lied on the ground here as well, but these were not killed by toxins. A large bald man was lying very close by, his back leaning against the left wall, his face cocked down in an unnatural manner, a tidy entrance wound in his right temple, and a very nasty exit wound to the left of his forehead, a trail of blood and pieces of cerebellum creating a reddish cone of about half a meter long. The eyes were forced in a cross-eyed position due to the force the bullet went through. Further in the hall, there were more dead, several man and women of which one had a very strange wound, a very wide wound that went right through one man's body. It was a carnage, a pool of blood and human remains.

In all silence, the four moved through the hallways, the echoes of gunfire and repetitive machine guns were still heard, but they came from floors below.

"Oh my god..." Fowler said, gasping. Pete Parker, who was the calmer type of man slightly shrugged. He had a lethargic expression on his face.

"It's a hostile takeover."

"You know Petie, literal jokes suck ass." Fowley grunted and followed behind the two with the stomachs to lead the party past the dead bodies. The general stopped somewhere in between and because of that, Fowley bumped into him and the group stopped moving, standing in between the remains of what were - at least - eight human beings.

"Now is this necessary Mr. Harris?" Fowley said with a whiny tone, attempting to keep his soles blood-free. The general looked at Britney and she looked back.

"Check for weapons. Judging from these bodies, I think we will need them."

Britney crouched to move a woman's body around. Underneath she saw the hilt of a weapon. She turned to face the general again.

"Desert Eagle caliber 50, sir." She looked up at him and grabbed it, cocking the loader back and making it veer back in place with a click. She finds several clips on two men, the general himself nodded and grabbed down too, finding, reddened by blood and pieces of what appeared to once have been someone's liver, another gun. HK type. She looked to the side, the man finding an extra clip for the weapon as well.

"These people have died only several minutes ago. It is possible that the perpetrators are still on this level. You two," the general was referring to Fowley and Parker,"...stay between us."

Britney's soles softly clack against the ground, her heart stomping in her throat. She was on edge now, up to extreme proportion, expecting something to turn up from behind every door or corner.

"Come on, let's get gas masks."

The party walks through the main corridors, passing a crossing where a plant was standing in a large marble bin, a hydro-matic type water dispenser with those plastic cups was in the adjacent hallway, together with a narrow black bench and a small table on which half a dozen newspapers and magazines were stashed. Ten meters further, a copy machine, another domestic plant and a coca cola dispenser were standing side to side. Suddenly, from a door to their opposite, an agent stepped out, his head immediately cocking towards the four. The general looked him over and smiled. The agent was armed and seemingly quite on edge to make sure he wasn't taken. They were glad that another one had survived whatever it was that happened. He started walking towards them.

"Good, someone else. Hey, we're on the way to getting some gas masks. You should too, they've used carbon mo... Wait a minute."

The general narrowed his eyes at the man's form, stainless suit, shiny shoes, dark shades and an earpiece. The agent's body language was very alarming. He suddenly started running and slammed his pistol forward, at which the general's Heckler Koch was aimed and he made a dive to the other side of the corridor, discharging a well aimed shot in his movement and two more as he himself hit the wall, lying on the ground. As the bullets hit their target, a reddish haze of tiny droplets of blood shortly steamed out. The first bullet aimed right for his heart, The second and third were in the stomach area. The agent gagged, the shock of the impact sending his right arm with the gun in it upwards as he then had the strength to pull the trigger one last time. The agent's bullet slammed into the ceiling and burst one of the lamps and causing a short rain of shards to fall down on his body. Laying on his back, blood seeped out of his mouth, internal bleedings and the damage to his heart teaming up to tear his life away from him. He breathed out and cocked his head to the side.

The general quickly got up and looked around, using the wall to push himself to his feet and checking his gun, a slight whiff of smoke coming out of the barrel. Fowley looked at the ordeal wide eyed. He was huddled behind the coca cola machine, holding on to its sides.

"Was that guy in on it or something?" he said with a sound of _holy shit_ in his voice.

"This is getting far too crazy," Pete Parker sulked and ran his hand through his blonde dreads. As they all took a short breath pause, all eyes were on Britney and the general.

"So, what's the plan?" Fowley asked.

"We go and find ourselves some gas masks..." the general explained, "...and if possible some more weapons. Then, we are going to one of the Pentagon's main terminal, where they were gathering data on the digital anomalies. We are going to write that data to a disc and we give it to agent Britney here so she can get it to her agency. Then, we leave this place and try to get to someone who still has a firm grip on things."

"Sounds like a plan all right." They looked at one another and start to move again. Pete grabbed the dead agent's weapon and followed closely after. At the end of the main corridor, there was a door to a small room. Britney moved to the front and yanked at the door, but it was locked down. She stepped back half a meter and held both her hands onto the Desert Eagle, pointing it at the cylinder lock. A gunshot sheared through the hallway, the bullet eating an untidy hole through the door. Afterwards, it almost moved open on its own. Stepping inside and quickly grabbing six gas masks, she would wrap one of the masks around her mouth and nose and give each of the other three one as well. She moved her hand up with a raised eyebrow and a slight grin, dangling the two spare ones in the air.

"For if we encounter someone." Britney's voice sounded distorted by the mask in front of her mouth, but it was still distinguishable.

"Ok, we need a clean way down," Britney said, looking at the other three as they moved towards the inner ring of the building again, where the elevators were.

"If possible, I want to prevent further ambushes." They nod between themselves and look down the stairways. The general narrowed her eyes and looked at devices on each crossing stair.

"I think the stairs are rigged. Pressure detonators.," general Harris muttered and pointed down through the shattered lift door.

"This elevator appears to have been detached... It's probably wrinkled up in the basement."

They eye one another and then the general decides to take the initiative. "We'll take the elevator shaft down to the second floor," he said to them.

"I'm in," Parker uttered, slightly folding his fingers and stretching them with his digits audibly cracking. The general went down there, holding on to the ledge. He sunk deeper and deeper into the very dark shaft, where the only light was made by the flashlight he still had with him. The sounds of their movement echoed through the entire shaft...

The entire Pentagon has changed from a very distinguished government installation into a slaughterhouse. A card house of faked neutrality, it seemed very calm from outside, but inside those newly reinforced walls, things were very different. The wind didn't hit Britney's hair, the cool outside air didn't sooth her. She was crawling down a very dark elevator shaft, with thermal imaging lenses in her eyes and a hormone mirror that was far too high, her fingers clamped around the Desert Eagle pistol like a vice. Now and then, a loud spark was heard, as if a whip clacked against the sides of the shaft and caused it to jolt. General Fritz Harris was beneath her, climbing down towards the second level.

Britney however did not say something, something that she might have wanted to say. She regrets it now, now the darkness constricts around her form and makes it harder for her to breathe. The illusion of the walls closing in around her. She was claustrophobic. She has always been claustrophobic since her mother, a raging alcoholic and a drugs user, used to lock her in a closet for hours when the little girl didn't do the work her mother was supposed to do for her. Visions of being alone in that closet with only a pile of used joints and a stash of empty beer bottles to keep her company, until several years later, when the damage was long done, even the hall, of which the walls were covered in a large, high stash of beer crates, therefore narrowing the walkspace, brought her extreme discomfort. Now, many years after going away from her mother and never looking back, she would feel it once more, the dark and the crampedness of the elevator shaft taking her breaths from her. For a moment she though the carbon monoxide had come back, but she remembered that she wore the gas mask. Maybe it was the mask, like a hand over her mouth as it happened so often on school, preventing her to speak when several bullies were kicking her when down on the ground. She closed her eyes and trembled, hoping the general would hurry up already.

The stench of weathered oil was rather pungent throughout the shaft, probably due to the lift cabin's rapid descent. The two half-excentric gentlemen that followed down above her were busy talking to one another with rather softened voices.

Finally, she heard the sound at which all her worries released as if it was snow melting away in front of the sun. The general's boots hit the very narrow ledge in front of which the door to the second level was located. He would pry away at the door and attempt to get his fingers in between, which took a while. Finally however, he succeeded, with a show of commendable strength considering the age of the good general, in opening up passage to the inner most main corridor ring on the second floor.

"Damn." He looked back and slightly shone at Britney. To her, the light was barely there, only the slight heat spike from the flashlight's light bulb. She moved down and swung herself into the second level, where she would quickly follow his example.

"Damn."

"My thoughts exactly," the general said, half-witty.

The second floor was a ravage, but also conveyed to them a new mystery. The extreme amount of bullet holes in the wall was made by very high caliber guns, guns that were in no way used by infantry or agents. They looked to the side for a moment, Britney approaching the wall wide eyed. She moved her sleek fingers in one of the holes to attempt and pry loose one of the projectiles, while Fowley and Pete moved in as well.

"Holy SHIT!" They said, both at the same time, looking at the bodies on the ground. These were completely torn apart by the much larger bullets. It almost seemed the work of an aircraft Vulcan repeater cannon, firing these large bullets that go right through a concrete column. Britney let loose a groan and pried it loose finally. It was a piece of heavily deformed material, but she knew what it is.

"Molten slag with a solid core." She turned to the side and followed Pete, who took the lead as they quickly moved towards the Terminal chamber. The general would grit his teeth and keep his HK close by.

"Keep your eyes out." His voice was almost bitten towards Pete, as he did not want to make too much sound. If whatever made these massive holes in the walls and in the people was still lingering around he would hate to be surprised by them.

From there, it was just a short walk towards the terminal chamber, but the closer they got to their target, the more insidious, the more dangerous and intense the silence was to them. It was as if someone hit a gong that wasn't really there. Each second. Maybe it were their hearts, but if that were so, they would probably beat synchronized. Suddenly, the general would pull Pete and Britney back behind yet another coca cola machine. He looked wideeyed, but was completely silent and so was Britney once she looked forward. Fowley's very reclusive nature saved him too, from getting noticed by the two heavy silhouettes that thumped by in the corridor they were about to cross. The general really had to refrain from moving the light cone from his flashlight over the silhouettes. Britney was in a short shock, as she noticed that the silhouettes did not show up on her thermal imaging lenses. Shutting them off with a control on her wrist watch, she looked at them in normal.

The last of the silhouettes stopped, its heavy thumps halting as it stood in the middle of the hallway now, right where the two intersecting corridors came together. It reared its head, without much of a sound, maybe a slight mechanical whirring. It was dark, because almost all lights were shot out and the others were severely faltering. When one ceiling light flickered, in a very short moment, they saw what it was. It was an android, its smooth steel exterior reflecting it in many ways. It looked heavily armored and comprised of rather many pieces, but retained its anthropomorphic shape. It looked like a human. When Britney saw it, it slightly reminded her of the steel man-like robot from _Terminator_. The droid's optical sensors scryed the surroundings, as it seemed to have heard something. The whirring of mechanics from the artificial creature's neck was beguiling, entrancing and nerve-racking. They attempted to the best of their abilities to remain quiet and give no hint of their proximity. It seemed like half an hour that the robot did not move, so therefore, they did not either. They didn't move a millimeter, they were completely still, all four once more holding their breath, until finally, it looked away and the loud thumps against the ground resumed and carried away towards the Terminal chamber. For good measure, they made sure to stay still for at least one more minute.

Fowler suddenly got up and leant against the side of the coca cola machine. He looked down at the other three.

"God damnit, those things are inside the Terminal room now!" he hissed and looked at them.

"We need to be in there, no doubt. We need that information. They've established a foothold. We need to get it and get out of here with it as long as we can." The general, as always, spoke with reason. Their gazes intersect eachother and Agent Britney Stanford clenched her fist.

"We're going in there and we'll shoot the bastards apart." She growled and looked at them.

"Anyone against?" she added, with a questioning tone to her voice.

Two no's and a reluctant no from Fowler was all she heard.

"Then let's do this."

A loud bang against the door of the Terminal chamber made it slam open and then, USA general Fritz Harris and WOOHP agent Britney Stanford stood in the large chamber. The chamber was an odd sight for sure. It contained one large bureau, with four computer terminals on it, hooked to a very large server that was built in the wall. The rest of the room was filled with a bunch of support beams and a row of archives. It was a strange contradiction; written archives versus digital database, but it was all there. What wasn't there, was what they saw and heard getting in and as they notice that in the well illuminated room, there was no one but a scrawny looking man who was rather scared by the sudden barging in. There was silence, the general and agent Britney looking into one others' eyes. Since that Fowley and Pete didn't hear a thing, they decided to shyly sneak a peek around the corner through the open door.

"What the hell?"

"No robots..."

They walk in calmly and look around. At the same time, Britney and the general look towards the small man astounded.

"Did you just see two humanoid robots come in?" Britney asked with a soft voice."

"No robots...?" Fowley said again, rubbing the back of her head.

A deep malign grin was on the little man's head.

"That's what you think," he laughed, and as if it was a call from hell itself, a loud ensemble of bangs ensued and ripped the corpulent Fowley right through the middle. In approximately half a second, his entire form was rend through by a hail of massive bullets, so fast that he did not even have enough time to start screaming. Wild, massive splatters of blood gushed from his unrecognizable form, the recoil from the molten slag bullets pressing him back against the wall until he fell apart, literally in limp pieces of unrecognizable meat. Britney yelled and almost instinctively had started moving. She was very fast and sped towards the closest column to quickly go into a defended position. The general also immediately shot into action and jumped to the side, his HK aimed towards the small man who was in the process of ducking away himself, the cocker slamming backwards in the release of a bullet. He hit the man's seat and the general himself fell behind one of the columns, closely followed by the heavy thumps of the two robots landing on the ground. It was the start of a battle between life and death. Pete Parker, who was still half in the door opening, would have made himself drop back by the first shot, therefore momentarily out of trouble.

Britney was posted behind one column, the general behind another, the small man would have crept behind yet a third of the columns that supported the ceiling to the large room, a grand total of thirty four armored concrete support beam. Britney was the first to come in action, as her lean, athletic form was well built for these kinds of actions, within the blink of an eye, she had turned around, cocking her gun towards the robot while still in her bodily rotation, she unleashed four well aimed shots towards the head of one of the robots and then, as it got its attention and realigned its weapon to aim for the young woman, she suddenly deliberately undermined her balance by moving her upper body down and kicking her supporting left leg up. The martial arts training all WOOHP Spies of her level had endured would come very in handy here. In a gravity defying jump in which she made something resembling a diagonal cartwheel, while her body turned around a full three hundred and sixty degrees, a jump that would shortly spread the matter of her body over the greatest amount of background possible which made it an excellent technique for evading projectiles. As both her legs reached the ground again, about twenty rounds would have singed right past her legs and her waist, her arm quickly extending around the support beam to push her body around it and once more behind its shielding bulk. The ongoing rattle of fire was soaked up by the extremely tough supports.

The robot didn't flinch too much, its facial armor could withstand the impact of bullets. That was very bad, because the general's weapon had a smaller caliber and wouldn't have much effect either. As the little man would have jumped back from behind his cover, Pete, who first cowered behind the door, decided to throw out his doubt and immediately jumped for the nearest column, saving the general from a shot from the little man, who was already far in the middle of aiming. He fire five shots, of which only two hit the target. A double yell of pain was heard, telling that he didn't hit him where he would instantly die, but the small man was thrown over and landed stomach first on the ground. The general shortly looked back and nodded with a grin, then moved back behind his column as the other robot had aimed at him. It unloaded its molten slag, eating away large chunks from the column, but the general quickly jumped away, cursing as his elderly bones would have to endure yet another shoulder first dive, behind another column. The one with the slightly dented head would have continued firing upon Britney, huddled behind her column as it got thinner and weaker with each rattling shot. As the one that fired upon the general shortly turned its attention towards Pete Parker running from his column towards the rows of archive closets, it turned one of its arms, one that held a mounted mini-gun, no less, rattling out the molten slag as if it was droplets of rain against the streets of Sao Paulo. The entire surface of all the closets he passed were systematically punctured and eaten away at, the maps holding old dossiers and data being reduced to airborn shards of paper. He walked for dear life and turned around the corner, accidentally slipping his foot against the side of the closet. This apparent mistake saved his life, as above his head, the 0.6 inch thick bullets chewed right through the steel backside. When they did, they created nasty outward bends, as if little volcanoes around large holes accentuated by sharp metal shrapnel bent outwards.

He breathed wildly; the deafening sounds of 1200 bullets per minute finally went down. The other robot was right in the business of aiming back towards the column Britney hid behind, but perhaps it was momentarily distracted by its friend's rattling mini-gun. When it returned its gaze towards Britney, her face was pulled in an enraged frown, and she was right in front of the thing. Ducking to the side to evade its arm mounted weaponry, her hands moved out of underneath her suit, a long, sharp steel thread had moved out of her pocket, wound around both her hands. As she went by and turned around the anthropomorphic robot, she caught its arm in some type of noose. A grin on her lips as her quick motion caused the other robot to aim at her head. She would cock her head back and slam her arms to the front to force the robot's arm to the front from the noose around it. Suddenly, both robots fired, the one Britney was standing up against fired rattling shots towards its friend due to her intervention, its friend was firing several rounds from his arm mounted mini-gun back, right over Britney's cocked down head. It could only release two, three shots, because Britney's action caused it to be shot to shreds by its friend. It was disabled by the bullet hail before the mini-gun could fire more.

The lowest bullet just barely went over her head and over the back of her neck, her hair was almost sent up in a flutter, as the wind wake of that bullet brushed them upwards. Within that minuscule part of a second, the robot to her opposite was sufficiently destroyed and she suddenly rotated, using her effective martial arts to force the machine's arm in a position where he could not target her and when that happened, she wound the steel wire noose to make sure its arm remained stationary. She then moved her arm around its forehead, most of its facial armor blown away by its friend's bullets. She puts her Desert Eagle up against the robot's chin and let her hand go of his head as she unleashed two bullets in the middle of its central processor. It fell down as lifeless as it was supposed to be, and she brushed herself off, the general looking up at her, not without awe.

"You're good." He smiled and stood up, rubbing his back, popping a vertebra or two back in place.

"I'm not the youngest anymore," he complained and searched around the room.

Britney was about to start smiling, but then suddenly looked around.

"Shit. Did we just lose both our computer experts?" she thought out loud, under the impression that that bullet hail completely obliterated Petie, but as soon as it was silent again, the office worker with his eccentric blond dreads appeared again.

"You lucky dog!" the general grunted with a grin, then rubbed his back again.

"Now get your ass behind that terminal and write that disk."

Pete nodded and went to sit and sift through the file register. His hands moved over a dual layer DVD disk as he put it into the writer trey. Hands rattled over the keyboard as in the basic operation system chances to be mired in your actions by a virus are slightly lower. One by one, he passes by the registry values added by the virus and mounted the DVD-rom writer, sending the patches and the files towards it one by one. It was about one file of cluster of files each ten seconds of heavy duty typing, the white letters continuing to shift on the screen in a way one would think it's impossible to work with or to know what in the world was done.

"Writing is now commencing," Parker said in a rather neutral voice, as if he was impersonating the voice of the computer itself. The sound of rattling came from the DVD writer, and a clear zooming from the disk starting to revolve faster inside its trey indicated that the writer reached it top speed.

"Now it's morely a matter of time."'

They all looked at the counter starting and Pete sat back. The shock of losing all those close friends up on the fifth and down here was still fresh in his mind. His breathing accelerated, and this was heard by Britney.

"Stay calm... When this is over we'll be out and you will be able to go away from all this for a looong time." She said with a slight amount of sarcasm to it.

The DVD writer was rather fast, a lot faster at least as those that are available to the public at this time. It simply zoomed across the files that were being written and though we were talking about a full total of 9.2 GB, it was done in less that five minutes. Since Parker had never burned a DVD in here, he was rather impressed. Parker quickly grabbed the DVD out of the opening trey and put it in a jewel case. He turned around slightly theatrically, threw the case at Britney in some sort of pirouette, and fondled at his sweater. He walked after Britney and the general.

"Ok, let's go let's go!" she commanded and walked out, turning down the lower stairways, which were NOT rigged with explosives. Their feet clacked against the marble stair, their descent swift, and the door that leads to the liberating outside was already visible. It was now as if she was merely pulled towards it in an unnatural fashion, however, it was not to be. Her movement was quickly impaired by an elbow that impacted with her cheek from the shadow. Britney bounced back and made half a turn around her axel, landing face down on the ground. Out of the shadows stepped a man in his thirty with a handsome face and a muscular build. On his head was a pair of shades and his ear had one of them ear pieces as well. His shortly cut hair slightly waved in the short brush of air that was forced in when the hacker opened the door and ran out, trying to save his own.

"Adrian?" The general looked as if he had seen a ghost, but quickly aligned his gun. An intensely quick movement from the extremely well trained, almost superhumanly skilled martial artist Adrian Ryson however turned the gun away from his face and folded the general's arm double along his elbow, turning his hand behind his back. The general groaned as his shoulder was almost pulled out of its socket, the gun forced from his hand.

"Long time no see, sir." He said, with no single emotion visible on his face. His arm blurred to the front in a massively quick movement, discharging a shot that went just past the already closing door, into Pete Parker's flesh, but at the very moment he shot, he turned his arm back to intercept the general's nose with his elbow again. A yell was heard as the man with the blonde dreads fell to the ground. Three extremely quick and well aimed attacks and all three seemed either dead or disabled. Britney groaned and tried to recover from the sudden smack against her face. It was as if she was hit by a car.

As the general fell down to the ground, he coughed and blood trickled down his nose wildly. "You have to listen, Adrian. Your father's doing things that are wrong!"

A quick movement from the creepy, controlled man in his rather tidy suit, tailored for his form, and the gun was in the general's face. In the mean time, almost a dozen of the mechanical units appeared out of the hallways, creating an almost unbreachable perimeter. Adrian banks stood upright, in perfect composure, his voice was filled with gravity.

"That's not up to you anymore, Fritz." Adrian's tendons slightly pulled, a bang was heard and without any remorse, a bullet ate into the general's skull, right between his eyes. Harris' expression became completely blank, a slight spurt of red coming from the back of his head, which fell back against the ground and stayed there, the puddle of red in which he lied slowly growing.

Britney tried to turn around, but found out that she was suddenly helped. A kick into her side from Ryson Junior's boot would make her cringe and turn to her back, her eyes almost blinded by the sharp reception lights and a shadowy haze hovering about a foot above her eyes. It was his gun. So close, yet so far. She expected it to be over within a second, but the decisive, life-ending blow never came. Instead, a sudden yank at the neck of her suit brought her form up with a loud gasp, Ryson Junior's stretched out and tightened left hand intercepting her jawline powerfully. A smack hard enough to render her unconscious. She breathes out and lays her head down on the marble, in the sweet sleep of knockout. Why was she still alive?

"A WOOHP agent." Ryson uttered without any elevation in his voice. Another agent that appeared between the bodies of the mechanical units suddenly stepped forward, his eyes on her form. Ryson turned to him for a moment, but then eyed the woman again, moving his hand in her suit and taking out the disk. He put it in his pocket.

"Take her downstairs. She may be of further use," was all he said, and then, the lights were dimmed. The entire Pentagon terrain and what was around it in Arlington was nothing more than chaos, soaring through the streets like glimmers in the dark.


End file.
